The Deaf Are King
by Froginatub
Summary: Karkat runs for his life, fleeing from a world where his life is a crime, and finds a hidden shelter for mutants like himself. He finds comfort there, but begins to harbor doubts when an old friend resurfaces, and questions the rebellion the Signless's training shelter is planning.
1. Rumors and Red

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS, and you cannot believe that you were right. You stand in front of a towering building, huge and grey and blocky, alone in the sunny wastes of Alternia. The building has no motto, no company name. Just a circle with a tail, like a comet, chasing another circle in a loop. You touch the matching symbol on your shirt.

You are sore and bruised and covered in bandages because god forbid any of your blood leaked into the open air. You feel very small and young in front of this building, but the sun is creeping over the horizon, threatening to end the short night. You wrap your hand around cold steel and pull the door open.

Blood thrums in the air. The low murmur of voices drowns out individual words. You have never seen this many trolls in the same place. There are tall, thin willowy trolls that look over the heads of the crowd, short, huge-horned kids so young and small they looked fit to keel over with the weight of their head ornamentation. The line stretches all the way to the door, a ribbon of tired, relieved troll. You slip into line and a tall troll with hair that dragged along the floor in dirty mats turns and gives you a tired grin.

"Where you from?" He asks with an unmistakable seadweller drawl.

"Alternia." You say, unhelpfully, and the troll rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, me too. Water the odds?" He asks, and you bite your lip at the fish pun. Old friends of yours- people you would probably never sea_ see _again loved fish puns. You turn from the tall seadweller and scan the room. All of the trolls are as bandaged as you are, some limp towards the front of the line on makeshift stilts, some limp forwards on makeshift false legs. All are tattered- dirty clothing, hair matted with mud and a full spectrum of blood- and every troll has not one visible cut. The tiniest paper cut has been meticulously taped up.

You stare down at yourself. Your pants aren't grey so much as brown now, and torn at the knees, several inches too short. The shirt that bears your symbol is torn and threadbare, the sleeves end a good three inches up your wrist. You look at the kid in front of you, and his fingers are long and slim and bare, no trace of the usually seadweller jewelry. His clothes are too small and have been sewed up too many times, just like yours. Seadweller of not, the tall kid's been through some shit. You sigh and jam your hands into your pockets and wait as the line creeps forwards.

You look up as the tall seadweller limps away from the front of the line and approach the desks you've been waiting to see for the past three hours.

"Hello?" You say, uncertain. A perfectly rectangular man looks up at you, square shoulders, square jaw, muscles corded thick under his skin. The man grabs your arm and holds it against the desk.

"Hey! What the fuck-"

He draws a knife against the palm of your hand and releases you, examining the candy-red on the knife. You yank your hand back, rubbing your wrist.

"Name?" He asks, wiping your blood on a sheet of paper in a binder full of identical forms.

"Karkat Vantas." You stutter, and he grunts, writing it down with a pencil that looks tiny in his thick fingers.

"Age?"

"Uh, seven and a bit."

"Lusus?"

"What?"

"Do you have a Lusus?"

You frown and glance out the door where your dad was hiding. "Yeah."

"Species?"

"Uh, Crab dad." You say, because fuck using the proper troll-Latin names.

He jots it down. "Get him, and bring him to your room while we organize the stables."

"Uh-"

"You have a sign?" He asks, and you gesture to your shirt.

He writes it down. "Welcome to the Signless's Training Shelter." He mutters, and passes you a USB key.

"Room 351." He says, and you stand and stare for a bit. He growls.

"Your new clothes will be in your room. Clean off and take a rest. Dinner will be in three hours." You stagger off with your room key. You're halfway up the stairs before you remember to get your lusus.

The sun is blindingly hot, and you briefly wonder how Kanaya ever did it, before remembering you'd promised yourself not to think about your old friends. Your lusus is standing in the shade of the building, looking hot and angry as usual. You sigh. You are seriously not in the mood for a showdown right now.

"Come on, dad." You say, and he files in behind you, polite and orderly. You file back inside, out of the bright-hot sunlight. Your dad is uncharacteristically quiet. He stays calm through the lobby, teeming with trolls, where you receive a few envious looks, and limp up the stairs to the third floor. Room 151 is a blank, candy-red door with a tiny slot in the middle. You insert the USB key, and the red on the door flickers with the words

"Welcome, Mr. Vantas."

The door spits your key out and slides open silently. The room is cool and small, with a Recuperacoon and a desk- complete with husk top- a couch, a chest shoved against one wall. There's a door that presumably leads to the bathroom. The walls are grey. The floor is polished concrete. Your Lusus seems satisfied, and he's folding himself into an awkward resting position, boney plates and spindly limbs jutting sharply in all directions.

What had the huge troll said? There would be fresh clothes, rest, clean up. You open the second door- mirror, sink, ablution trap, load gaper. Definitely a bathroom. You strip off the dirty too-small clothes and shove them into the sink. You run the water and let the clothes soak.

Your reflection is less then kind. You are bruised and dirty. A cracked rib, wrapped in bandages. You unwind the gauze and reveal a neon red bruise that wraps across the left side of your chest and across your back. One by one, you peel the bandages off. A slice across the forehead from some overenthusiastic FLARPer. A gash in your thigh from the same FLARPer when he'd seen your blood colour. A thousand little bruises. Nicks and cuts from marching through bushes. A shiny-pink burn from a blue-blood with a flamethrower and a hatred for red bloods. He didn't know your particular brand of red until he knocked you around a little. You run your tongue over the sharp points of new teeth pushing their way through your gums. Your eyes stare into themselves, flat candy red staring back at you, unimpressed, from the mirror.

You start the water flowing into the ablution trap and scrub at your filthy old clothes as you wait for the trap to fill. The water in the sink clouds brown, and you drain the water to start again. The roar of hot water and the sting of cold air on cuts that have been covered for weeks lent themselves to tuning out and thinking.

You've been running ever since red started creeping into your irises. You'd said a goodbye to Terezi that she probably wouldn't understand. You'd grabbed your dad, and a sickle, and set off to chase rumors of a shelter for mutantbloods like yourself.

Following that were weeks and months of running with an empty stomach and stretched nerves and a constantly changing roster of bruises. Too long passed between meals, between recuperacoons. It had seemed like a hopeless dream, running from town to town full of kids your age all making play at being adults, beating on the filthy rustblood who stumbled into their neighborhood.

You've acquired the sort of hard, ropey muscle acquired from walking and fighting everyday on an empty stomach. The old puppy fat had been replaced with jutting ribs and hollow cheeks. You turn from your reflection, and your laundry, and slip into the warm water that's been waiting for you.

The hot water is a balm, and being clean feels better then it has the right to. The towels are soft, and the new clothes that are sitting on the couch are warm and comfortable, a turtleneck and a pair of grey pants like yours were before they got too small. The only difference was that your symbol is now printed in bright red on the front of your shirt, not grey.

You settle down on the couch, planning on dicking around on the new husktop, but you're asleep before you can do anything, dreams dogged with the same whispering nightmares that follow all trolls when they sleep without sopor.

A bell rings trough the building, and you wake up thinking for a painful moment that you are back home. Your head is fuzzy, and you are warmer and cleaner then you've been in ages.

"Dinner is being served. All new arrivals please come to the auditorium. Maps are on your desks." A cool, nasally voice echoes over the P.A. system, and you check your desk- the auditorium is on the first floor, on the other side of the building. You creep out of the room quietly, not wanting to wake your lusus.

The auditorium is clogged with nervous, clean trolls who all smell like the same soap you used. Their shirts display colours that range from neon blue to pastel purple. Most colours are just-lighter or just-darker then the hemospectrum. There were the occasional neon like you, a few trolls with normal blood colours with the fins of seadwellers, blood so dark it was almost black, blood so light it was pastel, nearly white, nearly grey. The room smells like fresh-sawed wood and varnish.

You find a seat in one of the smooth white-yellow wooden seats beside a kid with too-dark green blood that shone through his skin from the tips of his ears to his bright cheeks. His horns are aggressively backswept, sticking straight backwards into over the seat. He shoots you a nervous glance, licks dry lips, and shifts in his seat, twisting a broken arm away from you.

"Excuse me, but is this seat taken?" Someone with a deep voice is right next to you, and you glance over. The troll has his hand on the back of the chair beside you. His fingers are covered in round, bright-blue scars. You look up at the owner of the arm.

He's tall and muscular, arms knotted under slumped shoulders. He was huge, but hunching into himself like he wanted to be smaller. A broad, flat-jawed face. Blue eyes with bruisy shadows under them. A horn, shaped like an arrow. The other one was broken.

"Equius?" You ask, and the tall kid jumps. He looks down at you.

"Are you Karkat Vantas?"

"Yeah. You're Equius. You built Vriska a new arm- I recognize you from grubbook."

He blushed neon blue. That is not the colour he typed in. Equius Zahhak, the sweaty mechanic you talked with on trollian sometimes, he typed in a deep, midnight blue. He was lying.

Equius takes a seat beside you, easing gently into the wooden seat.

"I was not aware that you were so low on the hemospectrum." He says politely, and you glance over.

"I'm not on the hemospectrum, fuckass. Neither are you."

He frowns and looks away.

"Hey, aren't you Nepeta's Moirail?"

He looks uncomfortable. "Yes."

"You guys were like, pale as fuck." You say. "You just ditched her?"

He looked down at the floor, said nothing. The smell of sweat drifts through the air.

You shrug and drop the conversation, and a woman files onto stage. The troll is tiny, practically bouncing with energy. Instead of jumping up and down, she files up to the podium that stands waiting for a speaker and holds perfectly still. Holding all that energy in makes her practically thrum with passion when she speaks.

"Allow me to formally welcome you to the Signless's Training Shelter." She says, and everyone sits up a little higher.

"You have gather from all over the planet, trekking through deserts and oceans and mountains to get here. You have fled from your homes and friends. You are tired and bruised and beaten down."

She stands on her tiptoes, slamming her hands on the podium. "This is because someone, somewhere, decided that your blood, your horns, your fins, your gills, make it illegal for you to be alive."

Silence in the auditorium.

"THIS SHOULD NOT BE SO!" She yells. "WE ARE NOT NEON PAINT. WE ARE NOT GENETIC MISTAKES, WE ARE NOT FOOD DIE, OR EXOTIC GRUBSAUCE." She quiets down. "Against all odds, _you_ have survived, _you_ have escaped culling, _you_ have stayed trolls instead of expensive paint. Against all odds, _you_ have made it here. Against all odds, you are alive, you sit here in front of me. In my eyes, this makes you ten times the troll of any of those purebloods." She smiles, warmly, welcomingly.

"This shelter is set up so that children like you can be cared for and trained to survive in a world where your very heartbeat is a crime. You will be given weapons, you will be given amour. You will grow stronger. You will sleep, eight hours a night. Sopor slime. Warm meals."

The hungry eyes of two hundred trolls were fixed on the presenter.

She took out a knife and stuck it, point-first, into the podium.

"While you are here, you will learn that all blood is equal. You will learn that you are no worse then any other troll because of the shade that runs in your veins. Your stunted horns do not make you a worse person, your vestigial gills don't make you a freak."

She grabs the knife, slashing it across her palm, holding her hand up. Bright, neon pink shone against the white-grey of her hand.

"DOES THIS COLOUR MAKE ME ANY MORE THEN ANY OF YOU?" She yells, and the near-royal hue has stunned the crown silent.

"DOES THE RED OF YOUR BLOOD, THE GREEN, THE BLUE, THE GOLD, MAKE YOU WORSE THEN ME? IT IS COLOUR, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. YOU ARE TROLLS, NO MATTER WHAT. YOU ARE PEOPLE WITH LIVES, AND FEELINGS, WITH PITY AND HATE, JUST AS MUCH AS ANY OTHER TROLL. YOU ARE NOT OBJECTS. YOU ARE NOT GRUBSAUCE. YOU ARE NOT PAINT. YOU ARE PEOPLE. WHAT RUNS IN YOUR VIENS DOES NOT MAKE YOU LESS OF A PERSON." The crowd stares at the almost-glowing pink on her palm.

"You are people." She says. "Never forget that."

There is applause, and a tall lanky man with pale, white-yellow blood shuffles onto the stage.

"Anyone with psychic abilities will be required to sign the mind-control and telekinesis agreement document- pick one up on the way out. Any one without psychic abilities, or with ones useless in combat, will be trained with a weapon of their choice. After dinner, we would like to request that you remain in the cafeteria, as you will be called by room number to visit the armories. Any questions?"

No one said anything. The man nodded, a slow curling of his upper body, and walked off stage.

"You will be taught in history and war tactics." Announces a third speaker- a green-blood with huge horns that curl around her jawbones like picture frames before jutting straight up. "You will be taught to read and write if you do not know. You will learn combat strategy and you will become fit. If there are no questions, please follow your row's leader to the mess hall."

An adult troll at the end of each row of seats stood. Yours was extremely pale- maybe blue or green- with a jaw you could cut steak on and horns like snakes playing twister. After a moment of waiting- in silence- for questions, your leader shuffles into the aisle, and you follow him to a crowded dining hall. Bland grubloaf and water. You eat like you haven't seen food in sweeps.

After dinner, you wait for you room to be called. 347, 348, 349… a troll with horns that droop like dreadlocks taps you on the shoulder after a while.

"351?" He asks softly.

"Yeah." You say, and stand to follow the droopy-horned troll down the twisting hallways of the training shelter.

"Take your pick. I'll be here. Take your form and your weapon, then you can return to your room.

The older troll has stopped at a non-descript silver door, and it slides open with a whisper of steel-on-steel. The inside of the room is Shining with polished Metal.

Swords and daggers hold no interest to you. Hammers and maces and guns and crossbows gleam dully on the shelves. You pass them all and lift a sickle from a rack at the back of the room.

The weapon feels comfortable in your hands. Right, somehow. You know that you're never going to be a threshecutioner. The sickle's just an elegant weapon, and you've missed yours ever since some indigo with a chip in their shoulder took yours.

The long-horned escort raised his eyebrows at your choice of weapon.

"Threshie, eh?" He asks. "Well, don't matter ta me. Take a form."

The next few days, you take a lot of forms. Combat injury consent form. Medical information form. Lusus attack responsibility form. The forms tapered off, and before you knew it, it'd been a sweep. Then two. You avoided Equius, you recognized most of the other mutants in the halls. You knew to go to the jade seadweller if you anted a party, and the bull-horned rustblood if you wanted something from the black market.

Another sweep passed and, quite without realizing it, you've slipped into adulthood. You Irises pulse coal-red, your muscle knot under your skin in a way they never had before. You are taller. Your callused hands grip a sickle like it was part of your arm. You wear you symbol, and your blood colour, proudly on your chest because yes, you are a mutant, and yes, for the first time in your life, you are proud of that fact.


	2. Rooms and Reunions

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS, and you are sitting in the middle of a mob of exhausted trolls. You have been assigned to desk duty- registering incoming trolls for the academy. You take down blood colour, lusus status, and age among other things.

It is one of the few days of the year when the harsh sun that assails the wastes has let up, and outside it is dark and cool. Trolls flood into the building, lining up just like you did three sweeps ago. They are just as bloody, filthy, and tired as you had been. Nervous relief fills the air.

"Good luck" You tell a green blood with gills. The troll nods uncertainly and stalks off with their key and a pure white frog lusus.

"Next in line please." A troll steps up to the desk. You grab at her wrist and hold it down as you slash her palm open. You feel her hand tense under yours- god, this one's _skinny._ Her blood is a strange pastel mixture of teal and blue. You release her arm and look up.

"Name?" you say, and you both freeze at the same time. It's been sweeps, but you'd recognize this troll anywhere. Straight, pointed horns that jut out at 45-degree angles, aggressively red eyes that stare blindly around the room, a twitching nose over a shark-toothed grin. She's older, yeah, thinner, taller, her hair is hip-length and matted, her clothes are filthy and carry no sign, but there is no doubt. You could never forget this troll.

"Terezi Pyrope." She says, after a beat. As if she needed to tell you.

Your name is TEREZI PYROPE, and you may be the least lucky troll on Alternia. He disappeared three sweeps ago, and he turns up here? Clowns save you, but you know who the man behind the desk is.

Karkat Vantas smells of cough syrup and ash. He is larger then you remember him, denser, like someone packed a seven-foot troll into a five-foot frame. He is small and well-muscled, clean and straight-backed, and shock rolls off him in waves.

You inhale sharply, and he stares up at you, bright, neon, _mutant_ red meeting your eyes.

Your six-sweep red fling, your old friend, the boy who'd disappeared without a word when you were turning seven who left only a message on your trollian that said:

"CG: Redder then you know 3."

Which makes more sense now. He wasn't referring to quadrants, but his super-saturated blood. But Karkat must have changed in the three sweeps since you'd last seen him, because he relaxes minutely, not swearing and ranting, but exhaling and squaring his shoulder.

"Age?" He asks, and his voice is deep and smooth and commanding.

"10 sweeps." You say, and he writes is down next to the false pastel of the blood on your page.

"Do you have a lusus?" He asks, and you nod.

"Species?" He asks, even though he knows perfectly well.

"Dragon." You say, and he scrawls is onto the page.

"Do you have a sign?" And he looks up, and you smell the sadness in his eyes when you say, "No." Because he knows it's a lie.

"You'll be staying in room 352." He says, and passes you a silvery USB key.

"Bring your lusus to your room with you until we can secure boarding for it." He sighs.

"And if you need any help, your neighbor can explain some things to you."

"Thank you, Mr…"

"Vantas." He says, and the barely-there confusion rings in your ears.

"You'll have clean clothes. Wash up, and wait for further orders over the P.A. system."

You nod and say, again, "Thank you, Mr. Vantas." And click your tongue. Your lusus drifts from the rafters and settles on the ground beside you. She only hatched recently, and is about the size of a hoofbeast at the moment. You leave the room that smells like dirt and sweat and the blur of hundreds of neon's and jog to your room, itching to strip off the dirty disguise.

Your lusus curls up in the corner, watching you with dull black eyes. You bathe and change, stuffing the dirty clothing into the wastebasket and washing off the grime and strange blood. You feel sick and hungry, and ache all over from the real cuts and bruises that dot your body. Bruised ribs, broken arm, split lip.

The clean clothing is a pair of grey pants and a black tee shirt with the sufferer's symbol on it, in a strange, pastel teal-blue. You can't quite abandon your red shoes, so you knock off most of the dust and line them up near the door. The room is bland and colourless, and you are bored, so you leave the respiteblock and knock on the door of room 351. The door smells overwhelmingly red, and the words

"Welcome, Terezi Pyrope. Mr. Vantas will be with you shortly" Flicker across the door.

Karkat's room is like yours, except he has more clothing, and a sickle hangs from a rack on the wall.

"Klack Klack Klack Klack." You turn, and Karkat's lusus clatters at you.

"Nice to meet you too, Mr. Strawberry marshmallow." You say, and Crab dad, seeming satisfied, settles back into the corner. You make yourself comfortable on the couch and wait.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms. Pyrope." Someone says stiffly, formally, and you turn to see Karkat standing in the doorway.

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS, and your old Matesprit is sitting on your couch, staring at you with burned-out eyes. The door eases shut behind you with a whisper of metal-on-metal, and Terezi grins.

"Karkat!" She says. "I haven't seen you in sweeps!"

You sit beside her, uncomfortable. "What the Ever-loving fuck are you doing here, Terezi?"

She grins again, that horrible, shark-toothed smile.

"I'm a muuuuuuuuuutant, Karkat. My blood is made of blueberry ice-cream."

"Fuck you, that's not true and I know it. I've seen you cry."

She grins again, and you look over, taking in the older version of your childhood friend. She's covered in cuts and bruises that look real, and ooze pastel blood that also looks real.

"What the fuck _happened_ to you, Terezi? I thought you were going to join the legislacerator corps. You look like you got in a fight with a bulldozer, lost, and then the bulldozer stole a month's worth of food from you as a trophy."

"I'm flattered." She says, fanning herself, and you scowl. "But I _did_ join the legislacerators! I'm here on secret empire business."

You shoot her a look. "Stop joking around. If you don't have a good reason to be here, the people who run this place will kill you."

She grins again, then allows her face to settle into a more serious smile. "I _am_ here on Empire business, I _am_ a legislacerator, and I'm here to shut this place down."

Your hand flutters on the handle of your sickle, and she notices.

"Put the weapon away, Threshie. I'm not killing anyone anytime soon."

You drop your arm.

"I was sent to follow up on whispers of an institute that was sheltering mutants."

You wince.

"Vriska and her lusus donated blood for me, and along with some sort of paling agent from the legislacerators, I made my blood like this." She opens her arms to reveal her various nicks and bruises.

"Then you rolled down a rocky hill and stopped eating?"

"Then my boss put me on quarter-rations for a couple of months and beat me up and kicked me out the door in trashy clothes."

You frown. "I just don't see the problem with the institute. Could you go back and tell them you didn't find it? No one here's hurting anyone, Terezi. We're just learning how to survive. Your hand is back on the handle of your sickle.

"There are hundreds of illegal trolls gathered in a facility with an armory and siege weapons. Tell me that doesn't smell a little like a rebellion." She pushes herself to her feet and smiles at you again.

"The group missed you, Karkat. You should message them."

You scowl as she walks towards the door, then she turns and tells you one last thing.

"I'll try to make sure none of these trolls get hurt, but I can't promise anything. And 'Redder then you know' is the worst parting line." She leaves you blushing on the couch.

It's been three sweeps, and Terezi is just as infuriating as you remember her. All sharp angles and bony joints. It's been three sweeps, and you never once thought that maybe the other eleven trolls missed you as much as you missed them. It's been three sweeps, and when you see Terezi Pyrope again, all of the old feeling resurface.

"Clack Clack Clackklack."

"Fuck off, dad."

"Klack Clak."

You look away from the crab lusus, and find yourself blushing neon red for the first time in sweeps.

"Clack."

"Shut the fuck up." You say, and you swear that he looks a little smug. Fucking Crab dad.


	3. Messages and Messiahs

Your name is **KARKAT VANTAS**, and you are logging onto trollian for the first time in three sweeps. You account is clogged with spam- it takes you an hour to dredge through it all.

"Is your blood too blue? Buy purple dye today!"

"The Empire's forces need you!"

"How to pack on muscle _and_ stay limber."

As you reach the end of the spam, there are only real messages left.

"KaRkAt, WhErE aRe YoU, bRoThEr?"

"Karkat, fef's all upset because Nepeta said that Terezi misses you. Wwhere the fuck are you?"

"K4RK4T, WH3R3 AR3 YOU? TH4T NOT3 YOU L3FT W4S DUMB. YOU DON'T GET TO L34V3 W1TH TH4T 4S YOU GOODBY3. 'R3DD3R TH3N YOU KNOW' 1T'S L4ME, K4RKL3S."

"Where are you? Your loser girlfriend's all twisted up about it. Did you stand her up on a d8 or something?"

"Karkat, I'm Worried About Gamzee's Mental State. He Seems… Volatile. Contact Me Soon. As Much As I Hate The Stereotype of Violent Highbloods, You May Need To Pacify Him."

Message after message, saying 'where are you, we need you, I miss you, it's been a sweep, and you're still gone, what happened?'

You feel like a dick. You abandoned your friends with nothing but a quick farewell to Terezi, and left them to wonder if you where even alive, until after three sweeps they stopped trying to contact you. Forgot about you. Moved on. There's one person online.

**carcinoGeneticist****[CG]**** began trolling ****grimAuxiliatrix****[GA]**

**GA: Karkat?**

**CG: HEY, FUCKASS. **

**GA: Karkat, You're Alive.**

**CG: HADN'T NOTICED, THANKS.**

**GA: Where Have You Been? You Disappeared Three Sweeps Ago. Everyone Assumed That You Were Dead. **

**CG: I'VE BEEN GOING TO SCHOOL IN THE DESERT.**

**GA: You're In The Wastes? Karkat, Is That A Joke? As Far As I Know, I Am The Only Troll In Our Group Who Can Stand The Sun. What Are You Doing Out Here?**

**CG: OH, I FORGOT. YOU LIVE IN THE DESERT TOO. I TOLD YOU, I'M GETTING MY SCHOOLFEED ON.**

**GA: Well, I'm Glad You Aren't Dead.**

**CG: ME TOO.**

**GA: …I Finished The Jacket I Was Making For You. **

**CG: WHAT JACKET?**

**GA: Before You Left, You Asked Me To Make A Coat For You. By The Time I Had Finished It, You Had Been Gone For A Week. **

**CG: I DON'T EVER REMEMBER ASKING YOU FOR A COAT.**

**GA: I Can Mail It To You.**

**CG: YOU DON'T KNOW MY ADRESS. IT PROBABLY WON'T FIT ANYWAY.**

**GA: I Could still Send It To You. Or Make You A New Coat. **

**CG: HOW WOULD YOU GET THE COAT TO ME? YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE I LIVE.**

**GA: So Send Me Your Address.**

**CG: I AM NOT SURE THAT'S A VERY GOOD IDEA.**

**GA: Why? Where Do You Live?**

**CG: UHHH**

**carcinoGeneticist [CG]**** ceased trolling ****grimAuxiliatrix [GA]**

You are exceedingly, unforgivably stupid. What made you think contacting her was a good idea? Stupid Kanaya and her stupid helping you (which is probably some form of heavily veiled passive-aggression).

The PA system crackles to life.

"Vantas. You're giving a speech in an hour. Please make you was to the auditorium."

Oh, fuck. You'd forgotten about that. The bosses chose you as a role model for all the new trolls. You had to give a speech. It probably wouldn't go very well. You bang on the wall that connects to Terezi's room.

"I'm heading to the Auditorium, if you want to come."

"One second." You hear her door open after a beat, and the then sharp 'tap-tap-tap' of her cane on the steel.

"Yeah." You say, and enter the hallway, leading your old friend down the halls of your new home.

Your name is TEREZI PYROPE. Walking down the hall with Karkat is a strange experience. He gets a few

Yells along the lines of; "Hey Karcrab!"

A few shiny-red apples thrown; "HEY! KARCRAB! HAVE A CRAB APPLE."

But the strangest is the way that most trolls press themselves out of the way, folding into doorways like he carries a deadly weapon- a respect, a fear. A few trolls curtsy, bow, a few look like they're pants-shittingly terrified.

But your old Matesprit takes it all in stride. Doesn't say a word, doesn't flinch when apples hit him in the back and go rolling down the halls, doesn't even acknowledge the bowers and scrapers.

"I have to give a speech." He makes a face. "It's going to be fucking terrible."

"You won't be _that_ bad, Karcrab." The nickname is infectious.

"Go get a seat. You'll see." He stalks off, this five-foot-nothing block of rough, indignant elegance.

The room _smells._ It reeks like nothing ever has before. It is a mix of tropical fruit and candy and ocean and springtime, a heady, over-powering mixture of colours that shouldn't exist. You sit near the front, because no one sits near the front, and you want some breathing room.

A short woman with gills and pronged ears hops onstage.

"Welcome to the Signless's Training Shelter." She says, with no hint of a seadweller accent.

"I am Samudra, but you're going to call me officer Vermundee."

_Vur-mun-daee. _There's the seadweller drawl you're expecting. The e is long and the V is clipped, the R is trilled, like the woman is trying to sing her name.

The woman has four horns, the front two are curved and long, the back two round nubs like Karkat's. If you ignore her head, they look like question marks.

"I usually give the opening speech, but this year, we're changing things up. Please welcome Kartkat Vantas to the stage!"

Banners drop- dripping candy red in the two swooping circles that you recognize as Karkat's symbol. The red stands out sharply against the grey of the banner, and you feel unsettled. Red Stitching and red symbols and grey fabric.

You reach for you neck, unconsciously seeking something, but it is not there.

Karkat takes the stage. He's (Grudgingly) wearing this cloak that pulls up over his head, with holes for his tiny horns to poke through. It's the same grey as the banners.

"You look dumb, Karkat!" You yell.

He gives you the finger. "You can't even see me!"

Karkat turns away from you, staring out over the crowd, and he seems taller, bigger, then he is, in his grey cloak and black leggings.

"As this member of the crowd so helpfully pointed out," He begins, shooting you a glare.

"I am dressed in a way that I wouldn't normally be dressed. I do, as she also pointed out, look dumb." There is a flash of sharp steel at his belt.

"I am dressed like someone none of you will recognize, because none of you had a proper education." He says, and slips his sickle easily from his waist.

"But allow me to tell you the story of the Sufferer, the Signless." He nicks his palm along a long, vivid scar, and bright red rolls down his hand and onto the stage. "The mutant."

Karkat tells a much-abridged version of the Sufferer's tale, with more expletives then are usually in the story. You, of course, already know this story. Vriska and you and Aradia had shared ancient legends, Aradia for the history, Vriska for the blood, and you for the whispers of Redglare that were tucked into the dead stories.

"And I know you may not believe in legends." Blood drips, unnoticed, from his palm, splashing onto the stage.

"In your short, cruel lives, what reason were you even given to believe in something? Your sweeps have been haunted by cruelty and fear, every moment of your lives since you first got into a strife and let someone see your blood."

He slides his sickle back into his belt. Once again, he seems taller, bigger, older, then he is.

"Why would you, trolls who have never even had the hubris to believe in another meal, believe in fairy tales?"

He sighs, and the gesture is so not-Karkat, so pleading, polite, _empathetic, _that it doesn't seem like him on stage anymore.

"But the fairy tales are true." He says. "And now, now you are safe here. Safe from hunters and drones and the fear of culling. Safe from starvation and sleepless, soporless nights. And now, you can believe."

He holds his hand up high, waving the mutant blood for all to see.

"The sufferer shared my blood." He says. "He had the same fear and doubt that you all have, and he didn't hide himself away. He fought. He fought for a new world where blood was just blood. Where this red line on my hand would require a bandage, not a hanging!"

"Where we could walk amongst those of pure blood and know that we belong. The Sufferer is my ancestor." He smiles wryly.

"And I thought ancestors were just grub tales too. But now I know. Tell me you didn't feel something when I walked on stage. Tell me you don't know that there is something in my blood that is not in any other blood in the universe." He flexes his hand, and fresh red oozes from his palm.

"Tell me that when you saw these clothes, you didn't _feel_ a change coming. They tried to erase the Sufferer's legacy, they tried to blot him from our society, but you cannot stop change, and the hope of this change has been passed down through the genetics of our race. So when you see me in these clothes, when you see my blood, you know that change is coming."

You frown. He's leaving a lot out of the myth.

"I have in me the genetic disposition for change. And it is in all of you, too. In the Low-blood seadwellers, in the neon-bloods, the black-bloods, the pastels, the psychics. In each of you there is the hope for change."

The trolls were listening hard. Sweeps of desperation where pouring out of them, replaced by a fervent belief of what Karkat says.

"Together, we can change the world. No more culling laws, no more trolls like us ending up as exotic paint, or lipstick. You have fought your way here, you will fight your way to the moons and back before we have won, and that determination, the power and hunger for change that I see in so many of you- that makes you ten times the person of any pureblood."

He presses his hand into the wall, leaving a red smudge, bright as the sun.

"When you feel that there is no hope, when you think that there is nothing more you can do, remember that the Sufferer died signless, swearing, struggling, because he wanted to create a future. And remember that he nearly succeeded, and he was one troll. And remember, you are the future of Alternia. You are the ones who will carve the path to greatness, and through you, the true glory of our race will shine."

His speech is hauntingly familiar, and the fervor he's whipped up reminds you of nothing more then the frantic desire of the subjugglators after a sermon.

You stare at the mutants around you, and they are _wrong._ You stare at your wiggler-hood friend on the stage; dressed up in big-boy clothes, and that cloak, those leggings… you do not know whether to worship him of hang him.

What you've seen tonight is grounds for a culling, but you cannot bring yourself to contact the Legislacerators just yet. You stand in the auditorium hours after everyone else has left, staring at the red smear on the wall. Without knowing what you are doing, you trace the Sufferer's symbol in Karkat's blood.

Then you are on the floor, false pastel tears leaking from your ruined eyes, the burning, unnatural scent of cherry blood filling your nose.

"Terezi." He says, gently, and puts a warm hand on your back. "Go home."

The warm-hand-warm-voice leads you back to your room, and when you turn around to see your escort, you see a short, tee-shirt wearing, distressingly _normal_ Karkat.

"My Speech was _that_ fucking moving, huh?" He asks, and you laugh a wet, gross laugh, and you ache to feel the easy proximity you had with him when you were six sweeps.

Instead, you unsheathe your cane-sword and swish it through the air.

"Let's go, miracle man." You say, because fighting is easier then the awkward shoosh-pap you know is coming. He slides the sickle from his belt, fluidly, easily, and you stare at his arms.

You have never seen Karkat Vantas in a tee-shirt before, and whatever he's been doing for the past three sweeps had given him the kind of muscles a highblood would droll over. His arms are knotted with pink-white scars, and the knobs of healed fractures, and the thrum of blood and strength under his skin.

You take a swipe at his cheek, lazily, and stumble forwards when your blade meets neither cheek nor parry, but open air. Karkat is standing in the exact same spot her was before, looking smug.

You jag at his chest, and he sways to the side on loose knees, sickle arm relaxed at his side.

Huh. He's better then you remember him. If Karkat hadn't been a mutant, he would have made a phenomenal Threshecutioner.

You feint, and then change direction mid-stroke, rewarded by a clang of steel-on-steel as Karkat's weapon meets yours. You lusus lets out a murmuring growl of warning.

_Don't hurt her._ The growl says, and you turn to give her a look. Steel meets the flesh of your neck, pressing but not biting.

"Dead."

"Cheating!" You protest, and Karkat grins.

"Like you never did that to me."

You shrug, and the hook of the sickle parts from your neck. The two of you swing and jab and hook, gently at first, testing, trying, then there's a clashing, roaring, sweating fight. You are formal and legal and proper, jabbing and flicking and trying to disarm, the way you were taught. Honorably, politely.

Karkat fights like a feral lowblood, biting and rolling and tripping and kicking, hooking the sickle around your leg and pulling you to the ground with a grunt and a snarl and a thud.

You are taller them him, you have longer reach, but Karkat stays close and fights dirty, and you were not trained for this. You are good, but for the first time, someone else is just a little bit better.

You stagger, head swimming, as he hooks his sickle around your horn and tugs, and you trip over his waiting foot, and your blade clatters across the room, and he's got his own at your neck for the second time that night.

You grin. "Karkat, that was very impressive, but you forgot something."

"What?" He pants, sweaty and tired and covered in tiny, bright-red nicks. Your lusus flows over the ground and knocks him off you, all smooth lines and easy grace. Your lusus has her claws at his throat, and her teeth bared in a grimace.

"I have a dragon." You say, and said dragon falls onto of Karkat, jaws clicking shut with an audible _crack_, grunting, rumbling coughs wracking her.

"Are you trying to _actually_ kill me?" He asks, indignant and flustered and familiar. You pull him from under your lusus- Christ; he's _warm- _and sit on the floor next to him,watching as your mother fights for breath with reptilian coughs.

"Terezi, I'm no Tavros, but even _I _can tell that your lusus is sick as shit."

You wince.

"Why? I thought dragons were supposed to be like, perpetual badasses."

"It's the blood." You say, and Karkat stared from you, to the lusus, then back again.

"The blood-dye made her sick? Terezi, are _you_ okay?"

You smile, and you feel the catch in your throat as you say, "Yes, I'm fine." But your Lusus's coughing always sets off your own, and you are on your knees, hacking like you don't need your lungs.

Karkat's fever-hot hand rests on your back, and is somehow soothing. He whispers 'Shh, It's okay," to you, like you are a grub with a nightmare, and you have forgotten how good he is at this. You calm right down, and the heat of his hand leaves you, and the motherfucker _shoosh-paps your lusus._

It works, too. And when dragon mom is sleeping peacefully, he stares up at you, concern and anger and indigence.

"What are you doing here? Terezi?" He asks, and you press your blade against his chest and tear his shirt. Neon red beads the cut and slides down his chest, and you fix you eyes on where the blood is, and you both sit in silence, staring as the sufferer's blood slides down Karkat's chest.

AN: WOW. You are Fantastic. The support I've gotten for this fic so far is phenomenal. Thanks to everyone whose read/favorited/followed my story or me. This fic is in it's early stages, but damn, I will write as fast as I can because you guys deserve it.

If you have any Questions/criticisms, don't hesitate to give 'em to me.

-Frogs.


	4. Spectrum and Strife

Your name is **Terezi Pyrope, **and you are alone in your hive with an itching in your chest.

The day is wearing on, and you should get to bed. You know this. But the Recuperacoon smells or harsher chemicals then you are used to- maybe they mix their sopor differently here- and you have a deep, fluid ache in your chest where the cough has taken root.

Something nudges at the back of your knees, and you turn to smell your lusus shoving you gently towards the 'coon, like you were fresh-blinded and didn't know how to get around yet. You oblige your dragon mom, shucking off your new clothing and climbing into the strange Recuperacoon.

It's cold, and for a moment you have trouble adjusting to the chill in the slime, but the sopor's strong, and you can't fight sleep for much longer. You drift to sleep, the red of Karkat's blood branded into your nose.

"HEY!" Something loud and irritable and much too awake for this time of night barrels into your room.

"Hey, Terezi! Wake the fuck up, or you'll make us both late!" Something raps impatiently against your Recuperacoon, and you climb out of the slime, perching your head on the rim and fixing your red eyes on Karkat. He's in a bomber jacket and a dress shirt, and both have his symbol, in his colour, stitched over the breast pocket. You haul yourself a little more out of the 'coon, and Karkat turns away, blushing scarlet.

"Terezi! Jesus, you didn't tell me you slept naked."

You slide to the ground and towel off the slime, then climb into yesterday's clothing.

"You done?" asks Karkat, and you grab your cane.

"Ready when you are, Crabby." She says, and he frowns, and you follow him out of your room and down the halls of the building.

"You'll be in the lowest-level weapons group to start, but they'll probably pull you up to my level once they see how good you are." He says, and pokes his head into a doorway that looks exactly like all of the other ones.

"Fuck, you made me miss breakfast." He doesn't sound angry, just irritated, which is how he always is.

He keeps walking, and as you follow, something occurs to you.

"Karkat, how did you get my room key?"

He turns to you, shoots you a grin, and says, "Terezi, I was running away for half a sweep. If you think I didn't learn to steal in that time…"

You frown. The Signless thing was blasphemy, but you'd never much _liked_ the weird clown cult that ruled over the military branches of the Empire. It was also treason, but you'd never much liked the empress.

Stealing, though, was just illegal. You whack Karkat over the back of the head with your cane.

As soon as you do, he tenses for a quarter of a second, then drops, draws his sickle, and springs up again, looking for his opponent.

"Just me, Karkat." You say, and place the tip of the cane on the floor. You are a little impressed by his reflexes. When did he get those?

He relaxes, sheathes the sickle. "Why did you hit me?"

"Stealing's a crime." You say, and he turns around, stares for a moment, then turns back.

"Dipshit." You hear him mutter, and smirk. Profanity is like a second punctuation when Karkat talks.

"You're training here." He stops in front of a grey door- They all look exactly the same, how does anyone here ever get to the right room- and you press your key into the slot in the featureless steel. The door slides open, and as Karkat starts walking, he yells over his shoulder,

"If you make me late for lunch, I'll fucking kill you."

The door glides smoothly shut, and you're standing in a room with a rough circle of sand clearly designed for fighting. Benches line the walls. There are first aid kits scattered around the room like confetti.

"New blood." You turn. There's a hulking, shirtless troll staring you down. He's tall and covered in scars, and his horns dip down and forwards under his ears.

"Yeah?"

He stares at your eyes, like most trolls do when then see your face for the first time. You wish you had your glasses- you are naked without them- but you just look up and stare, eyes blank-red, and the huge troll looks away, uncomfortable.

"We're doing a physical. See what your muscles can do. Grab a partner and a paper, see how many of each exercise you can do in sixty seconds." He's professional and distant, with a thick northern accent, and smells like sopor. The troll in front of you continues to be more interesting then the staring silence of the rest of the room.

"Anyone want to partner up with the blind girl?" The instructor guy calls, and this skinny, underfed troll with sleepy eyes raises her hand.

"I'll take her."

"Thank you, Inky." He says.

You go over to the skinny girl, and stare down the lingering gazes until they look away.

"Terezi." You say, holding out your hand- fuck, these kids have probably never shaken hands in their life- and you decide to pass off as one of those falsely fancy douchebags like Eridan was, with his suit jackets and deep, sarcastic bows. You drop a skirtless curtsey.

The kid looks at you. Her eyes narrow, her boney little shoulders hunch, and she reaches out her hand to meet yours. She's seadweller-cold, hand rough and thrumming with freezing seawater.

"Inkvis." She says. "Ruby, eight sweeps, seadweller."

You withdraw your hand from her suspicious grasp.

"Iceberg, ten sweeps, landdweller." Karkat had told you about this form of introduction- blood colour, age, gills and frills.

The kid stares down at the pastel blue-teal on your shirt. She's thin-they all are- and beaten down with the kind of defiant stance that says 'insult me, I dare you.' But she's got this defeat and hurt in her eyes. You weren't treated very well as a kid- handicapped trolls never are- but this kid's never met anyone who liked her. All of these trolls are the same, with the same beaten-down defiance, and you start to wonder if you can keep up your disguise. If you can fake a lifetime of disdain.

"You and the little signless black?" She asks, and you fix her with a blank red stare. She wilts. Karkat has to stop swearing at you in the halls.

"You gong to count first, or run through the exercises?" you ask, and she hands you a sheet with a table printed on it. Her name's scrawled messily at the top of one side of the table. You print your name on the other side. Down the side of the table are exercises- push-ups, sit-ups, the usual.

"First thing's push-ups." You say, and she slides to the floor.

"Time starts now."

Skinny as she is, the young seadweller is strong, as most high bloods are. Weak with malnutrition, but she has the elegant strength you've seen in Feferi.

"Time's up." You say.

She sits back, panting and loose-armed, completely exhausted. This kid pushed her body to the limit with the push-ups. She's never done anything _but_ pushed herself when it came to physical exertion. Another thing you'd never have thought to fake. God damn it.

You mark down the push-ups she'd done and drop to the floor to do your own.

"Uh." She says, then bites her lip.

"Yeah?"

"I can't count."

Oh. Duh. "I'll count myself." You say, and she nods.

"Time starts now."

You do push-ups for the thousandth time. They were a daily occurrence during legislacerator training, and you're glad for that training now, glad for the ropey muscles sweeps of training's given you, because you have to push yourself harder, have to fake the desperation you saw when your seadweller did her pushups, and you can feel the shake of exertion in your arms, and it's only been forty seconds.

And hour passes in a blur of stopwatches and sit-ups.

"You all done yet?" The shirtless instructor calls, and every eye in the room is on him. Uncertain nods around the room.

"Sparring." He says. "Blues there, greens there, seadwellers there…" He points you into groups according to your blood colour.

"Get out your respective weapons. If you feel like it's too easy, move up a group. No psychics- this is weapons class, not 'mind channeling 101." The redbloods are the most fragile, typically, and the seadwellers strongest, but all of these kids look like they could kill easy as blinking.

Your group is wary, fingers tightening over shiny-new weapons. You pull your sword from the cane with the usual rasping hiss.

"Who wants to fight?" A kid with a dagger lifts his hand hesitantly, and you face off.

He looses immediately. You mow through the blue bloods and the violet bloods and most of the magentas without breaking a sweat. All they have is brute force on their side- you have weapons training, and these kids are no match for you. Even the highest blood (none of them are _technically_ Highbloods, as none of them are actually on the hemospectrum, but you don't know what else to call them) only takes a few moments of fighting before he caves.

"You. Blind girl." You turn to the instructor.

"Yes?"

"You think this is some sorta joke?"

Everyone is watching you. You've beaten down most of the kids in the room, and they're eager to see you punished. This, at least, is familiar.

"No, sir. Or else, a very bad one, because I'm bored, not laughing."

Snickers, gasps. Kids not used to defiance, kids amused by your arrogance in the face of the hulking instructor.

"Are you bribing the others into losing? To make yourself look good?"

"No, sir. I own two things, and those are Fucking and Nothing" You raise two fingers as you say the words. "I'm not sure what I'd bribe them with."

More snickers.

An angry sigh.

"You want me to believe that you're this good without training? How would that happen?"

"Just a natural, sir." You say, and shoot him a pointy grin.

He sighs. "Two rooms over. There's a personal trainer for our 'Naturally talented' trainees. Go a few rounds with him. Then come back and tell me if you want more training."

"Yes, sir." You turn to leave.

"Oh, and blind girl." You turn. "Better take one of these. The man tosses you a first aid kit.

Two doors down is another sandy sparring ring. The lights are off, but that's not a problem for you. At first the room appears empty, but then you notice thst there's someone hunched in the corner, facing away from you, corpse- still.

"Hey, corner guy."

Your name is **Equius Zahhak,** and you are going to give the weapons instructor a firm talking-to about sending snarky trainees to you as a method of disciplining them.

"What is it?" You turn and stand, leaving the metal you'd been tinkering with in a pile in the corner.

The young man is tiny. Skinny and angular. He's made of elbows and spare hipbones.

"Mr. Sopor slime cologne doesn't like me." His voice is very high. And nasally. And annoying.

"Uh, Who?"

"The weapons guy. He reeks of sopor."

You squint at the troll in front of you. The room is dark except for light creeping in under the door, and all you can see is the outline of a body with short, angular horns. Grumbling, you flick the lights on.

"You were short with the weapons instructor, were you not?"

"He was obnoxious. And not strong enough to be as scary as he pretends to be. Sir."

You turn. Not strong enough-

"Terezi Pyrope."

Not a young man, then. She stares up at you with the same flat, red eyes she's had for sweeps. Inhales deeply.

"Equius Zahhak." She says. "You hair is even longer now."

This is all wrong. This pure blood, this mid-blooded pure blood is in your home, talking about your _haircut_ of all things.

"Terezi. What are you doing here?"

She raises her sword and waves it gently through the air. "The weapons instructor didn't like me."

"No, here, the shelter."

She peers at you, seeing through you better then anyone with working eyes could. She grins, lips parting in a shark-toothed, seadweller smile.

"Where are you keeping Nepeta?

You blanch. "I- what?" too much. How did she- your skin prickles with heat. Your fists clench, squeeze until sharp pain burns at your fingertips, threatening to break.

Terezi inhales deeply, then smiles the same predatory grin as before.

"Why, Mr. Blue Raspberry Surprise, were you hiding such a delicious blood colour?"

You stare down at your hands. Four crescents of blood on each palm ooze blue.

"Fiddlesticks."

"Still sticking with that 'proper highblood' shtick?" She asks, and you hunch. What is she _doing _here?

"Uh-"

"I suppose if I don't get a beat down, we'll both get in trouble, yes?" The girl jumps from topic to topic like a humming bird.

You want to break something right now, but not a childhood friend. "I don't-"

She swishes the sword through the air. "Afraid to fight a blind girl, 'bloo blood?' I'm not as fragile as you might think."

"You don't-" there's a sharp nip of pain at your ankle, and Terezi's standing to your left, not in front of you, holding a sword that drips bright blue. She sniffs at it then looks at you. Grins.

You do hope she doesn't lick it. That would be… Distasteful.

"Very well." You make a clumsy swipe at her with your left hand towards her shoulder. She's gone before you touch her, standing formally, sword describing small circles in the air. She leans forward, lets the steel lick against your chest. Lets cool blue fall to the ground. You stare at her. She stares back.

"Are you trying to provoke me, Pyrope?"

Another grin. "Maybe."

Your blood flows bright-cold down your chest. Terezi Pyrope, your childhood acquaintance, stands in front of you, sword tipped with your blood, and you swing again, harder.

You miss. Drywall crumbles. A nick on the ankle. A grin.

"Come _on_!" Like a child. An insistent, whiney grub.

"Very well." You rumble, and you grab the back of her shirt before she can run. Slam her into the ground. She springs back up, grinning, and spits out a broken tooth.

The tooth is coated in a shade of mutant blue-teal. You weren't the only one hiding a secret. Growing up, messaging her, talking to her, living next to her best rival- how did you never know? The bite of Terezi's slim sword snaps you to the present.

"Come on, Blue raspberry. I'm ready to go another round." And when she grins, her teeth are stained pastel.


	5. Fugitives and Futility

Your name is **Terezi Pyrope,** and you are bruised, and missing a tooth, and your sword has snapped in two, but you have a more important job to do then sleep.

This 'training shelter' is a fine place for those who have nowhere else to turn, for the mutants and the outcasts. But not for people who can have a life outside. You are coming to realize this. And there is no way you would still be alive unless Equius Zahhak still had his moirail. He would have squashed you out of pure rage.

Nepeta Leijon disappeared three sweeps ago, and you are beginning to understand why.

You search the building, and people stare at you. Eyes in various shades of wrong unashamedly watching as you trudge through the halls, bleeding and limping. You shoot a leering kid a gap-toothed smile and he scampers away.

"Hey." You say, turning to a troll who is looking away and clearly wants very little to do with you (and whatever beat you up).

"Uh, hi, miss." Nervous little kid with pineapple eyes and frilled ears.

"You know where Equius Zahhak's room is?"

Kid goes cols, panic flashing in wide eyes.

"Uh, yeah. Floor seventeen. Bright blue door."

You nod and lean in real close, dripping some of your chalky blood on the kid's foot.

"You smell like tropical fruit." You whisper, and the kid melts away.

Seventeen stories is a long way when you've been fighting the equivalent of a blue-raspberry steamroller for the past hour.

The blue door is bright and sharp and tangy, and you knock.

"Eq?" There's a squeaky voice and a scrabble, and the door slides open. You limp in, past Nepeta, into Equius's hive.

It is distastefully blue.

The floor scuffs loudly under your shoes. You can feel Nepeta's eyes on you. Confusion and silence hangs in the air like fog. You sit on the B100 blue couch an turn, smiling at your childhood friend before realizing that your grin is full of blood. She flinches; a soft little jerk, and you close your mouth.

"Nep. How have you been?"

The words seem to startle her out of silence, and she smiles, flopping onto the couch next to you and hugging you close, the way she always did.

"Terezi." She says. And that's all she says for quite some time. After a while, you realize she's shaking against you, little sobs shuddering through her delicate frame, and you pull her off and hold her and arms length and give her another smile.

The years have not been kind to Ms. Leijon. Her eyes are ringed with heavy bags. Her skin is thin and cold, like the first snow of the year. Always small, Nepeta seems Fragile now, like the smallest breeze could knock her over.

Nepeta Leijon used to thrum with energy, never sitting still. She lived so bright, and so fast. Now she just seemed sad. She'd always wanted to be a cat, but right now, Nepeta reminded you of nothing more then a bird. With tiny, hollow bones and clipped wings.

"If Eq Finds you, He's gonna be mad." She says.

"I've already _had_ a run-in with your Moirail."

She looks you over again, and her soft green eyes widen.

"You _fought _Equius?"

You nod, stretching your legs out, trying not to tear scabs or show bruises.

"Nep, why are you here? There's no place for trolls on the hemospectrum in this 'shelter'."

"Why are _you_ here?"

"I have a job to do." You say, and you fish around in your neckline, then pull out a tag.

It says:

Terezi Pyrope

Teal Blood

Legislacerator Corps

"You made it!" the delight is forced, her smile worn like old shoes.

"Yeah. I'm here with the corps, Nep. Got my dream job. You never got to whatever job you were gonna have though, you're trapped here. The world's got a place for you. You need room to stretch your legs, Nepeta. To run."

She smiles again, and it's sad, resigned. "I'm not a little kid anymore, Terezi. I'm not a cat. I'm not a wild animal. I don't need a cave, or a forest." She rubs at her eyes.

"I miss home sometimes. I miss pounce, and I missed you guys, and I miss Tav, even though he writes sometimes."

"Come home. Say hi to all the old gang. Go for a hunt again."

Nepeta looks you over, but you don't need her to answer, not really. "I can't. I was never any good back home. Here, I'm useful. I'm the only thing keeping Equius sane. He gets so angry…" she rubs the back of her neck, sleeve slipping enough to show feathered pea-green bruises.

"You said everyone has a place. This is mine. This is the only place I'm needed. I'm useful here, Terezi. You were always strong. You never needed to pretend."

She looks at you, and her eyes are wet-soft with tears, and her narrow little shoulders are shaking again, and you shove yourself up.

"Keep safe, Nep." You say, leaving the room. "And keep in touch."

The door slides shut behind you, and you think you need some first-aid.

And a drink.

"Where the nook fondling fuck have you been?" Karkat Vantas is waiting for you, and he's not even angry. He's resigned.

"Terezi, what the fuck happened to you? You look like you pailed a bulldozer!"

Your name is **Karkat Vantas,** and Terezi just passed out on your floor. Fuck.

Things were a lot easier before your Ex-matesprit stumbled back into your life. The situation bears an uncomfortable similarity to a shitty romcom as you haul Terezi off the floor and onto your couch.

What the fuck even _happened?_ Terezi's sharp cheekbones are obscured by a layer of swollen bruises, her fine hands are torn and bleeding. And she's splattered in a particular shade of blue.

Equius. Fucking. Zahhak.

You flip Terezi on her front and slice her shirt off. It's sticky with blood, and you have to _peel_ the soaked fabric away from the skin in some places. Lifting gently, ever so gently, you slide the shirt off her arms and let it drop.

There's no way she's not going to hate you for this. Soft skin and back muscles roll under your hands as you ease off her bra. Terezi is as pretty as you remember her, though more bloody then you're used to seeing her. Angular and exotic and fucking _bleeding to death, _sweet troll Jegus, _get a grip_.

She's carrying a first aid kit, which is helpful, if a little strange. You clean the teal-and-blue blood off. There's a pile of bloody tissues on the ground, but Terezi is clean enough now. Her palms are sliced open, jagged cuts like someone slashed her in the same two centimetres of skin twenty times over. Claw marks and enormous bruises dot her back and arms.

Did he- did he _bite_ her? From the looks of things, she reciprocated- Terezi's teeth are broken and missing, and those that are left are stained with two shades of blue.

You use up most of the bandages in the fist aid kit, awkwardly taping gauze on parts of Terezi that you never thought you'd touch. To be fair, you never thought you'd touch any part of Terezi again, to be fair, but her ribs and lower back were pretty low on the likely-to-touch list. You were always terrible at redrom.

There's less teal and more blue blood on her legs, so you cut her pants just above the knee and put ice on the enormous bruise spreading across her shin, then leave her to wake up. Don't want to expose too much of her skin there.

Fuck, she's bleeding all over your couch. You turn and glare at Terezi, and she fucking _takes your breath away._ Skinny fucker looks like some battle-scarred war hero, sleeping peacefully, muscles standing out under soft-grey skin. She's smiling a little in her sleep, eyes fluttering. Probably dreaming about hanging people or some shit.

You look away because it is one hundred percent not okay to stare at your topless childhood friend while she sleeps in your room, recovering from a beat down. That's creepy. That's Eridan Ampora level bullshit, and you are _never_ going to be like him_. _

Because you are bored and apparently a masochist, you log on to trollian to see if anyone is online.

Just. Fucking. Sollux.

**carcinoGeneticist****[CG]**** began trolling ****twinArmageddons [TA]**

**[CG]: HEY ASSHOLE.**

**[TA]: Holy 2hiit, look who iit ii2. You're late to the lo2er party, a22hole- There'2 no more 2pace for diick2 liike you. **

**[CG]: WOW, OKAY, I FORGOT WHAT A PRICK YOU WERE.**

**[TA]: Aww, KK you don't mean that. **

**[CG]: FUCK YOU.**

**[TA]: II'm not 2ure II'm comfortable enough iin our relatiion2hiip for that, KK. Take iit 2low, II've been hurt before. **

**[CG]: YOU ARE THE WORST. **

**[TA]: Whatever, KK. II Got IIron2 iin the fiire now, II'm liike vrii2. Here, play thii2, iif you've got the tiime. IIt's a toned-down ver2iion of the normal game, for priick2 liike you who can't handle the real ver2iion. **

**[CG]: WHAT? NO, I DON'T NEED A BABY VERSION. I'M NOT THAT BAD.**

**[TA]: 2ure. **

**[TA]: **** /Kaizo-Mario-World/**

**carcinoGeneticist [CG]**** ceased trolling ****twinArmageddons [TA]**

Anyone would have been better. Vriska, Eridan, Another awkward conversation with Kanaya where she deliberately avoids talking about your old pale fling.

Thollux captor is an asshole.

You download the game file anyway. It is frustratingly difficult. It is wall-punchingly hard. You haven't played one of Sollux's games in a while. Apparently you are out of practice.

"Karkat."

Terezi's voice is rusty nails, and she is a welcome relief. "Yeah."

"I didn't bleed to death."

You glance over. "Uh, yeah."

"Thanks."

In her smiling red eyes, there is something akin to pity.

Yo slide onto the couch next to her, help her sit up, pass her the palmhusk she asks for.

Terezi Pyrope leans against you and texts, and she is warm and sharp and you missed her.

Your name is **Terezi Pyrope,** and you feel like a sack of shit and a half. There is a solid, grumpy warmth sitting next to you, and that same warmth, ever the gentleman, bandaged every part of you except your crotch and butt.

Texting is hard with bandaged hands, but you manage.

**gallowsCalibrator****[GC]**** began trolling ****adiosToreador [AG]**

**[GC]: T4VROS!**

**[AG]: hI, tEREZI, **

**[GC]: 1 FOUND YOUR G1RLFR13ND!**

**[AG]: yOU, UH, FOUND nEP? wOW, THAT'S,,, UH, AWESOME.**

**[GC]: Y34H, Y34H, K1SS MY 4SS L4T3R. R1GHT NOW 1 N33D YOU TO H3LP M3.**

**[AG]: hELP YOU DO WHAT, OH GRAND l****egislacerator****? **

**[GC]: DON'T B3 SH4RP W1TH M3, MR. CHOCOL4T3 M1LKSH4K3. I N33D YOU TO CONV1NC3 H3R TO COM3 HOM3.**

**[AG]: uHHH, tEREZI, I WOULD LOVE TO,,, BUT I CAN'T, AND I MEAN, I MISS HER TOO, BUT**

**[GC]: T4VROS! I THOUGHT YOU LOVED HER!**

**[AG]: uHHH, WELL, i GUESS i DO, BUT SHE, UH, MADE HER OWN CHOICE, AND i MISS HER, BUT, i THINK SHE CAN DO WHAT SHE WANTS, **

**[GC]: 1T'S NOT L1K3 TH4T! SH3'S B13NG H3LD C4PT1V3 UND3R TH3 CRU3LTY OF MR. R4SPB3RRY SHOCK3R!**

**[AG]: i SAID NO, **

**[GC]: WOW, L4444M3!**

**adiosToreador [AG]**** blocked ****gallowsCalibrator****[GC]**

**adiosToreador [AG]**** ceased trolling ****gallowsCalibrator****[GC]**

That did not exactly go as you had planned. Tavros Nitram appears to have grown a backbone. And it's annoying.

**arachnidsGrip** **[AG]** **began trolling ****gallowsCalibrator****[GC]**

**[AG]: Hey Terezi!**

**[GC]: VR1SK4!**

**[AG]: I hear you've 8een having some trou8le with lame Mr. robo-legs Mc lame pants? **

**[GC]: HOW DO YOU 3V3N KNOW TH4T?**

**[AG]: I have my ways. **

**[GC]: :[**

**[AG]: Fiiiiiiiine. God, you are 8ossy! **

**[AG]: Thollux gave me some new software, okay? I was just really exited to try it out. I couldn't w8 for something useful to spy on.**

**[GC]: TH4T'S K1ND OF 4DOR4BL3. **

**[AG]: Yeah, yeah, whatever. You want me to make Tavros talk to Nepeta or not?**

**[GC]: WH4T? NO! VR2SK4, 1 THOUGHT YOU W3R3 DON3 M4N1PUL81NG P3OPL3!**

**[AG]: Fuck you, I n8ver even d8d it that much!**

**[GC]: TH4T 1S A L13 AND YOU KNOW 1T. LOOK, YOU'R3 3V3N DO1NG YOUR FLUST3R3D 8 TH1NG W1TH TH3 VOW3LS.**

**[AG]: Do. You. Want. My. Help.**

**[GC]: NO! MR. CHOCOL4T3 MILKSH4K3 M4D3 H1S CHO1C3. **

**[AG]: Ugh, whatever. You're so lame!**

**arachnidsGrip** **[AG]** **ceased trolling ****gallowsCalibrator****[GC]**

Vriska Serket is a huge bitch. She's probably going to Mind-wrestle Tavros into telling Nep to come home anyway. 8itch Bitch.

But you know that you cannot stay mad at Ms. Serket. You never could. That makes it worse.

Karkat grumbles and shifts your weights against him, and you lean into his warm shoulder. He's solid and hot as a furnace, and his arm is draped softly around you like it's the most natural thing in the world. You toss the palm husk to the floor and curl into the arms of your warm little mutant.

You will regret the affection later, but right now it is all you need, and Karkat gives this smoky little sigh and leans his head against your shoulder.

AN: Sorry I didn't get this chapter up as soon as I was supposed to! I've been in the hospital for the last four days. Back to more regular chapters soon!


	6. Lies and Liberty

Your name is **Karkat Vantas,** and you stretch and wriggle deeper into the warm slime of your recuperacoon. You are groggy, waking up slowly. The slime is warm, and so is the sleep fogging your brain. Something warm and solid brushes your back, and you turn.

Terezi Pyrope is in your recuperacoon.

Your life is a fucking train wreck.

Now more awake then you want to be this time in the evening, you curl away from her and rub at your eyes. Terezi mumbles in her sleep, shifting, seeking your warmth. Before you can decide 'fuck it' and collapse back into the slime, you grab the edge of the 'coon and haul yourself out, landing on the floor sticky with sopor and sleep.

A quick shower and a change of clothes, and you're sitting on the couch awaiting the weekend breakfast service that comes door-to-door with the same dry, bland food served at every other breakfast.

Terezi crawls out of the slime an hour after you do, dragging herself to the bathroom with all the co-ordination of a drunk spider in roller skates. She limps out a while later, clean and dressed and slightly more conscious.

"Evening."

She mumbles something that might have been a greeting and sits gingerly next to you, covered in sopor-encrusted bandages and blue bruises, holding herself like a fuckin' soldier.

The quiet in the room is exquisitely awkward. She is sitting next to you, and you are both holding your legs stiffly, to avoid contact. Long-separated childhood matesprits. She crawled out of your 'coon. Spent the night sleeping right beside you. You'd bandaged her war-wounds. It was so cliché it was practically a red rom com.

And yet…

You'd split sweeps ago. You'd fought and bit and hurt each other more then anyone in a flushed romance had the right to do. Even before you'd left things had been strained.

"So."

She looks at you like you are a marching band during a hangover. You look at the ground.

"How'd you get that sweater?" She asks. Her voice is the dry rasp of Scales rubbing against each other. Coughs drily.

You look down at yourself. "I asked for it." The sweater is several sizes too big, grey and baggy and hanging down to your thighs. It's warm and comfortable and you don't care how hurt Terezi is, she's not getting your sweater.

A long, hard, red stare, but you've dealt with worse, and Terezi's blind glares don't have the same effect they used to.

"How'd you get that sweater that big?"

You stare at her. "Terezi. I'm the Signless's descendant. I can get a baggy sweater if I want one." You fought tooth and nail to get this thing, but you're not telling her.

She just lets out a long puff of breath and looks away, rubbing at stiff muscles. You feel suddenly guilty. She was in a fight with the troll equivalent of a large building. Probably cracked a rib, she was bloody and tired, and you didn't even offer to help.

"Uh, you want me to change the bandages?"

She looks at you with a mix of anger and relief. "Do what you gotta, Dr. Crabapple."

The breakfast cart arrives, predictably, as you are unwinding the bandages closest to her chest. A skinny little blueblood opens the door then blushes periwinkle when she sees you with your hands all over Terezi's naked torso.

"Uh, sorry, Mr. Vantas."

You grunt and take the breakfast and finish cleaning all of Terezi's nicks and bites and gouges. She sits up, leaning back against the couch slowly, gently, letting a long breath hiss between her teeth.

"Oatmeal?"

She flashes you a look that could boil stone.

"I'm fine, thanks."

She doesn't look fine. All bruises and bandages, winces like every breath hurts her (Which it probably does, because she's probably got a fractured rib).

"He's got Nepeta." She says, out of the blue.

"What?"

"Equius. He abducted her and he's holding her in his room."

"Equius Zahhak kidnapped his Moirail?" You glance at her. "You're fucking kidding me. How the hell would you even know? You've been too busy getting your ass kicked to do police work, last time I checked."

She shifts a little, rubs at where her glasses used to be. You wonder if she still fiddles with the arms like she did when you were young. You think about Terezi and Equius and muscle shattering narrow bones like toothpicks and ask,

"What happened, anyway?"

Terezi looks at you over cheekbones like razor blades and shoots you a smile full of broken glass and says "You should 'a seen the other guy."

The unsaid words hang so heavy in the room you could use them as building blocks. As the days pass, then the weeks, the uncomfortable silences turn into relaxed ones, quiet spells that come from truly having nothing to say, not having something to say but not wanting to say it.

Your battered 'mutant' detective heals quickly, though not as fast as the rumors that you're pailing her. Snickers and vaguely sexual gestures follow you through the halls, but you're the Signless's ancestor, and she's a blind detective who's so hard-nosed you could hammer nails with her. You do okay.

The only moments where you feel like things could fall apart are the assemblies. You can feel the smothered sense of justice in her, Begging to jump up and cry out 'Illegal! Mutant! Treason!' and cull the leaders on the spot.

During the assemblies, She's wound tighter then a watch spring and stares straight ahead, nearly vibrating with the energy off it all. Today is one such assembly.

You sit next to her, looking at her, gauging her. She's already tense in the coiled way Nepeta used to be, waiting to pounce.

"Ladies and Gentlemen. Fellow Trolls." The pink-blooded leader with the question-mark horns enters the stage, and Terezi's arm tenses, tendons jumping out under bluish skin.

"Welcome, to our new arrivals. You have been here for a few weeks now, hopefully you are settling in alright."

A few kids cheer, until they realize that no one else is.

"For everyone else, you know that for sweeps, we've been telling you that things need to change. That you are all People, that you are all worthwhile, no matter what anyone says. That you are more then what runs through your veins."

Terezi lets out this low, frustrated hiss as the woman on stage talks through her usual treason.

"But what can you do? What can _we_ do? We can fight. And we _will _fight." She scans the crowd, shoulders squared, looking tight, serious.

Terezi is grabbing the arm of her seat so tightly that her knuckles have gone white.

"You have all had unspeakably hard lives. You have been pursued and tormented and tortured. You have been physically and verbally and sexually assaulted. You have been unable to fight back. Unable because you were starving, unable because someone stole your weapon. Unable because you were already injured, or weak, or hadn't slept properly in weeks. Unable because you were too scared to fight."

Terezi shoots you a curious look somewhere around sexually assaulted. Your poker face has gotten better in the three sweeps since she's seen you.

"But now, you are well fed, you are well rested. You are no longer injured. You are strong. No one will get their hands on your weapons but you. So what if left? Why do we not fight?"

Murmurs rush through the crowd. Terezi's lip curls in distaste.

"We do not fight because we are scared. But sweeps and sweeps ago, when the signless first led his rebellion, he was the only mutant blood there. He was the one who stood up, against a younger Empress, against a harsher world. He stood alone, and slowly, he gathered an army."

Terezi looks puzzled and angry at the same time.

"And he told his army great things. About equal blood, a world where all trolls worked together, bluebloods and greenbloods and redbloods toiling side by side, as equals. And the mutant bloods, working with them, alongside them, not as freaks, but as people. And he fought for that dream. And his army fought with him."

You do not know when Terezi grabbed your hand, but she is squeezing it hard enough to crush your knuckles over themselves. Her nails bite into your skin, and your blood rolls onto the floor.

"And he lost. Because he was alone, and because his army supported him, but they did not know the suffering of a mutant blood. They did not share the need for change, only the desire."

Your speaker has gotten more and more animated as she talked, gripping the sides of the podium, almost shouting into the microphone.

"The signless lived alone, grew up alone, raised himself, lususless, like some of you, gathered to himself an army, friendless, loveless, and he fought until he was caged, and killed, and he bled fire."

Terezi is practically steaming, and you do not understand. She always loved stories, loved history.

"We will fight for him. And we will win, because we have something that he did not. Time. The thousands of sweeps have worn on his greatest enemy like wind on a mountain. The empress is old, and she is dying."

A shocked murmur rushes through the crowd. Terezi winces.

"So she will not fight us. She will send her troops to fight us. And we can kill them, but only for so long, because they are many, and we are few. But there is a way to kill them. All of them. Everyone expect for the empress, and the heiress, and us."

Whatever it is, it's bad, because Terezi is nearly breaking your hand, and blood is running from her torn, gnawed lips like a small waterfall.

"You do not know of this because you were not properly schooled. You were not properly schooled because you don't exist, and why waste schoolfeeding resources on an empty hive? But that is not what I am here to talk about."

She sighs. "Our empress, Her Imperious Condescension, has allowed the newest Tyrian-blood to remain on Alternia, rather then dueling her as is customary.

Perhaps it is because the Condesce would lose the fight with her would-be successor, perhaps not, but this means that there is someone your age guarding the speaker of the vast glub. Someone who has never dealt with the hardships you have. Someone who you can kill. Someone who has a lusus that is capable of killing every single troll, expect for the empress."

She pauses, Terezi lets out this low, strangled noise, and you think of Feferi Pixies, and doubt that she is capable of killing the empress.

"And except for you. We have done research. We have discovered that the reason that trolls like you- trolls who are off the hemospectrum- are culled is that you are deaf to the vast glub. You and the empress alone can withstand the psychic onslaught that kills all others."

Terezi is breathing in quick, short huffs, her eyes darting around the auditorium like a caged animal, like she's wondering how many people she can kill before they take her down.

"So we are going to go to the ocean. We are going to kill the Heiress, the troll who will inherit the empire once the Condesce dies. We are going to murder her guards and attack her lusus until it screams with the pain, and trolls fall like dominoes. And everyone who ever hurt you will die. And without her helmsman, the empress will die of age before she reaches us. And we will rule an Alternia full of those who know only Equality.

And we will rule, because those who are deaf to the Vast Glub deserve to rule. Those who can survive the Vast Glub _should_ rule. And we will rule well, and fairly, and those under us will only be under us in title, and we, the mutants, the outcasts, the deaf, will be the kings and queens of a new world."

Cheering. Screams of approval and joy and justice. Trolls rise to their feet in a roaring standing ovation. Only you and Terezi remain seated, her because she is locked in a strange, predatory trance, you because she has latched onto your hand and will not let go.

Your name is **Terezi Pyrope,** and you started to lose it when the asshole leader with the question-mark horns started dong history wrong.

You feel sick and your mouth tastes like metal, and the world is rocking under you like a dingy in a storm. The only thing that is solid is Karkat's hand, ad you squeeze him tightly and try to stop the ground from shaking.

"Terezi, are you okay?" His voice is thick with concern, and you look over, and you do not know where to direct your eyes, so you are probably staring off somewhere into middle distance, but it does not matter.

"No."

"Can you let go of my hand?"

"Yes." That is something you _can_ do, so you unlatch your fingers from his, and your hand is sticky with cherry-red blood, and Karat massages his fingers before saying,

"What's wrong?"

And it is such a terrible question, because everything is wrong, and you are again overwhelmed by the idea of it, the _scale_ of it, the horrible possibility that it might work.

"Okay, sorry, bad question. But listen, Terezi, I do think this rebellion needs to happen."

Anger clears your heads and you lock your eyes with his and Karkat goes peppery with anger in response.

"Not like they say, asshole. I'm not an idiot, I don't think everyone deserves do die like they said."

The way he says it makes you doubt.

"Listen, we can still win equal rights, without fighting. My ancestor, he started a war, right? He killed people, and even though it was for a good cause, He was still killing people. People with families and jobs. People who were just following orders."

The twisted version of history in this kid's head is a knot too old and stiff to untangle.

"So we don't have to fight. We can talk. A peaceful rebellion, Terezi, can you _imagine?_ All my life, I've been a savage, a feral, but what if," His arms windmill vaguely for a moment.

"What if we could do it _without_ killing anyone? If we could do it by telling them what's wrong, by making them understand what it's like for people like me. What if we could prove that we're sane, stable, people, by refusing to fight?"

A strangled sound escapes your throat. Karkat never knew about his ancestor, not really, never knew what he really did, and he is following in the man's footsteps, stride for stride.

"What if, by making ourselves known, but not fighting, we could show that we are not savages, that we want equal rights, and are decent enough to not kill for them? The very nature of our rebellion would prove our cause!"

Karkat is glowing from inside with excitement, and wonder, and pure, limitless Passion, and you were wrong. This troll, in his baggy, ash-grey shirt and black jeans, he is not candy, he is not cherries, or apples, or cough syrup.

He is _fire. _And you are being set alight.

"How, Karkat? How?"

He is so enraptured by his idea, his eyes spark, and his hands dance through the air.

"We can write a letter- give a speech, even, to the officers, the leaders, the same way we'd do the actual rebellion- peacefully, respectfully. They'd _have_ to fucking listen, they'd _have _to!"

Your name is **Karkat Vantas,** and you are going to rebel against a rebellion. You'll contact Kanaya, ask her to write a letter for you, tell her everything. They'll listen, they'll change, the _world_ will change. It'll _have _to.

Terezi is staring at you with deep, deep pity in her scarlet eyes, and you hug her closely and crush your mouth against hers, and you missed her, you missed her, and soon, you'll see them all again, because you won't have to hide anymore.

She hugs you back, tightly, like you are keeping her afloat, and you sit for immeasurable seconds in that empty auditorium, listening to her heartbeat.

"Can I borrow your palmhusk?"

She unwraps her arms, and you sit back and take her phone.

"Thanks."

You log out of Terezi's trollian account and into your own. Kanaya is offline, but you write her anyway.

**carcinoGeneticist****[CG]**** began trolling ****grimAuxiliatrix****[GA]**

**[CG]: KANAYA, I NEED YOUR HELP.**

**[CG]: I WAS A BIT OF A BULGE EARLIER, SORRY ABOUT THAT.**

**[CG]: BUT I REALLY NEED A HAND.**

**[CG]: AND I NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING.**

**[CG]: I NEVER TOLD YOU MY BLOOD COLOUR, RIGHT?**

**[CG]: NEVER TOLD ANYONE.**

**[CG]: WEL…**

**[CG]: ONE SEC.**

**carcinoGeneticist****[CG] ****changed his text colour to****#FF0000. **

**[CG]: THIS IS MY BLOOD COLOUR.**

**[CG]: THAT'S WHY I RAN AWAY A COUPLE SWEEPS AGO.**

**[CG]: MY EYES WERE STARING TO CHANGE, AND I ANYONE FOUND OUT…**

**[CG]: SO I FOLLOWED SOME RUMORS. **

**[CG]: WHISPERINGS ABOUT A SCHOOL, A SHELTER.**

**[CG]: WHERE THERE WERE OTHER PEOPLE LIKE ME.**

**[CG]: OTHER MUTANTS. **

**[CG]: IT'S REAL, KANAYA, AND THEY'RE PLANNING A REBELLION.**

**[CG]: THEY'RE GOING TO KILL FEF AND TRIGGER THE VAST GLUB.**

**[CG]: AND THE MUTANTS ARE DEAF TO IT.**

**[CG]: BUT THAT CAN'T HAPPEN.**

**[CG]: THEY SAY MY ANCESTOR WAS THIS HUGE LEADER.**

**[CG]: THEY TOLD ME THAT HE GATHERED AN ARMY AND FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM BUT,**

**[CG]: THAT'S NOT WHO I AM. **

**[CG]: FREEDOM SHOULD BE WON WITH PEACE, NOT WAR.**

**[CG]: I NEED YOU TO WRITE A LETTER FOR ME. **

**[CG]: TELLING THE LEADERS WHY THEY SHOULD LEAD A PEACEFUL REBELLION.**

**[CG]: PLEASE.**

**[CG]: I KNOW I'VE BEEN A HUGE FUCKING DICK, I'M SORRY.**

**[CG]: I SHOULD'VE WRITTEN YOU, SHOULD'VE TOLD YOU I WAS ALIVE.**

**[CG]: BUT… **

**[CG]: I AM DOING THIS FOR YOU, KANAYA. THIS REBELLION WILL KILL ALL OF YOU, AND I'VE ALREADY LOST ALL OF YOU ONCE.**

**[CG]: PLEASE, WRITE THE LETTER, SEND IT TO ME OVER TROLLIAN.**

**[CG]: AND, ALSO,**

**[CG]: I NEVER SAID THIS ENOUGH BEFORE,**

**[CG]: SO,**

**[CG]: .**

**[CG]: .**

**[CG]: I HOPE YOU CAN FORGIVE ME FOR BEING A HUGE BULGESUCKER LONG ENOUGH TO WRITE THE LETTER.**

**[CG]: THANKS, KANAYA.**

**[CG]: AND I'D LOVE THAT COAT.**

**carcinoGeneticist [CG]**** ceased trolling ****grimAuxiliatrix [GA].**

You are **Karkat Vantas,** and you think that things are starting to change.


	7. Deserts and Diplomacy

**AN: I won't often put an author's note, and if I do, I'll try at put it at the bottom of the chapter to avoid forcing you to read it, but I feel the need to clarify some things. This will be explained later in the story, but I'm getting a lot of messages about these things and would like to clear then up.**

**1. (Thanks to a reader for bringing this up- your comment made my day!) I do use more similes and metaphors then most writers because I find them fun, but I will use them most when writing from Terezi's perspective (she can't see, so she'll call something smoky or sharp or compare it to something she can smell/taste/touch/hear before saying red, or shiny, or comparing it to something visual). If I'm writing from Equius's perspective, I'll describe people's movements more, if I'm writing from Karkat's perspective, everyone he likes will be beautiful, because Karkat is a romantic little fuck and reads too many trashy novels. Rather then an inconstancy, it's just how the different characters view the people around them. This will become evident as we meet the other trolls. **

**2. Differences from canon- ****The Condesce is way older.**** This means that some things can happen that couldn't have had she been in her prime (The STS exists, more mutants are escaping culling, Fef and a few other adult trolls remain on Alternia.). The only two ancestors that are alive are The Condesce and her helmsman. **

**3. Everyone is older! Basically what it says on the tin. Everyone is older, so most of 'em have gone through training, matured, aren't whiny genocidal douches (Eridan isn't an asshole!), and are mostly of-planet dealing with grown-up troll stuff like conquest or training (Terezi rose through the legislacerator ranks quickly. She excelled, most of the other trolls are still in training.). A few trolls have remained on the planet (Legally or otherwise).**

**4. Relationships! Differences from Canon mean people fit together differently. I do apologize if your OTP isn't in this fic- neither are mine (No rose means no rosemary, for example). A side note about relationships- both pity and hate friendships are equally important. So while Karkat doesn't want to be in a Quadrant with Sollux, and is almost always angry with him, they are good friends, because trolls need both 'positive' friends and 'negative' friends/rivals. **

**5. The hemospectrum is a gradient, and anything more or less saturated, or darker or lighter, then the hemospectrum colour range is a mutant. Equius's blue colour is at 100% saturation, so he's mutant by this definition. When I started this fic, I didn't know that the hemospectrum was a few set values, and the plot works better with that. So…**

**6. Other miscellany. Rather then quitting FLARP when he was paralyzed, Tavros borrowed Nep's lusus and continued. Vriska is a pirate, because SPACE PIRATES. Aradia was not killed by Sollux, only her lusus was. And I thought this was pretty clear, but no, the sufferer did not ACTUALLY kill people or raise himself. (Terezi thinks **'the twisted version of history in this kid's head is a knot too old and stiff to untangle.' **And that** 'Karkat never knew about his ancestor, not really, never knew what he really did'). **I do know the story of he sufferer, the people over at the STS are just lying because none of the trolls ever got a proper schooling, so there's no chance they'd know about the Sufferer (Knowledge of the myth is rare even among trolls with access to schooling) Sorry for any confusion that might have caused. ****Also, fun fact- arc one of TDAK (the first 10 chapters) is set to be 20 thousand words. So that's a thing.**

**Thank you all for your support! Every review brightens my day! Thank you VERY much to the people who have commented! And I'm glad you like the title (you know who you are). Indenting appears no to work with the formatting of this site, so sorry for that and any additional grammar errors (the latter would be my fault). If you guys have a lot of questions, I MIGHT set up Tumblr or something to address them. Apologies for the infodump. Stay wonderful, and enjoy!**

Your name is **Aradia Megido,** and you have a job to do. The ruins where you have made your home are full of surprises and ancient writings. And weapons. There are a number of people on this planet who will buy weapons from you. Even if you aren't allowed to be on this planet.

Even if the weapons aren't strictly legal for the lowbloods you sell to. Tonight, you're making another trip to the armory. The place is a warren you're hoping to crack. The very walls of this place bleed ancient stories, the weight of the ages making it feel very old, very tired. The stone creaks with the history it holds.

Your palmhusk buzzes, then the 'new message' sound echoes through the ruins.

It's Kanaya. The light of the phone glows eerily in the otherwise dark hallways.

**grimAuxiliatrix****[GA]****began trolling ****apocalypseArisen [AA]**

**[GA]: Hello, Aradia.**

**[AA]: hey kanaya! i haven't got anything for you! sorry!**

**[GA]: I'm Afraid This Is A Little More Important Then Ancient Dresses.**

**[AA]: how is that possible?**

**[GA]: I Know. Sometimes It Seems As Though Moth-Bitten Dresses Are The Only Things That Truly Matter.**

**[AA]: so what is it?**

**[GA]: It's About Karkat.**

**[AA]: karkat vantas? **

**[GA]: Yes.**

**[AA]: he's alive?**

**[GA]: It Would Appear So.**

**[AA]: that's great! but I don't see the problem- what do you need help with?**

**[GA]: It Would Seem That Karkat Has Bitten Off More Then He Can Chew. **

**[GA]: It Would Also Seem That He Has Blood Much Like Yours.**

**[AA]: karkat's a redblood? why is that important?**

**[GA]: His Blood Is Several Shades Lighter Then Your Own, Aradia. **

**[AA]: wait, karkat's a **_**seadweller?**_** A pinkblood?**

**[GA]: No, He Is Definitely Red. Just Very Saturated.**

**[AA]: what?**

**[GA]: Karkat Has Mutant Blood, Aradia. **

**[AA]: oh, that's why he ran off!**

**[AA]: why'd he write you after so long?**

**[GA]: It Was A Couple Weeks Ago. He Contacted Me To Say Hello. He Was As Rude And Immature As I Remember Him.**

**[GA]: But Then Around Dawn Today He Contacted Me Again.**

**[GA]: He Asked For My Help.**

**[AA]: and you need my help helping him? What do you want? a suit that'll fit him? All the ones here are probably a few centuries out of style. **

**[GA]: As Much As I Would Like A Suit From You Ruins, They Would All Be Too Large On Karkat. **

**[GA]: And Medieval Clothing From The Area You're In Usually Has Codpieces. And I Have No Desire To See Karkat With One Of Those. **

**[GA]: No, What He Needs Help With Is A Letter.**

**[AA]: a letter? karkat contacted you after 3 sweeps to ask you for a letter?**

**[GA]: Apparently, The People At His School Are Planning A Rebellion. **

**[GA]: Our Friends, And Us, Will Be Killed. They Are Planning On Unleashing The Vast Glub.**

**[GA]: He Says His Ancestor Was Some Big shot War hero. **

**[GA]: But He Thinks That The Rebellion Could Be Just As Successful If It Was Peaceful. **

**[AA]: wait, what's his exact blood colour?**

**[GA]: ****#FF0000**

**[AA]: you're joking! karkat? really!?**

**[GA]: What's The Matter?**

**[AA]: Let's just say karkat's ancestor is sort of famous! **

**[AA]: but he was no war hero!**

**[GA]: You Are Being Frustratingly Vague.**

**[GA]: But I Suppose It Doesn't Matter. Karkat Needs Me, And I Hope You Will Help, To Write A Letter To Convince The Leaders Of The Rebellion To Go A More Peaceful Route. **

**[AA]: i'll help for sure!**

**[AA]: but next time we meet up, remind me to tell you about the sufferer!**

**[AA]: or ask fef **

**[AA]: she might know**

**[GA]: Thank You, Aradia. **

**[AA]: no problem!**

**[AA]: but kanaya, you have to tell me something**

**[AA]: are you still pale for karkat?**

**[GA]: my quadrants are none of your business.**

**[AA]: that is a blatant lie!**

**[AA]: at least **_**one**_** of your quadrants is **_**completely**_** my business! **

**[AA]: are you pale for karkat? Yes or no?**

**[GA]: …**

**[GA]: See You Soon, Aradia.**

**grimAuxiliatrix****[GA]****ceased trolling ****apocalypseArisen [AA]**

After all these sweeps, Kanaya _still_ has feelings for Karkat. You switch off the palmhusk and drop it back into your pocket. She wants to Nurture him- she wants to protect him.

Karkat being the sufferer's descendant, though. He's always been so angry. And loud. You shrug. Stranger things have happened. It'll be daytime where Kanaya is now. In a couple of hours, day will be breaking here, and night falling there. You wander back to your recuperacoon to catch a few hours of sleep. You've got a long walk ahead of you.

Your name is **Kanaya Maryam,** and you have nothing to do but wait for nightfall. You have done the chores you need to, you have checked on the matriorb growing and changing in the caves to the east. You have trimmed and watered the plants.

So you sit. Hours pass, and the sun creeps across the sky. It begins to set and you start to get drowsy. For something to do, you start a kettle boiling. It has started to whistle when there is a knock on the door.

"Hi, Kanaya!"

Aradia stands at your door, grinning, her cheeks dimpled by her smile. You welcome her into your home, and the other troll sits easily on your couch, crossing her legs and dumping her messenger bag on the floor.

"Is that the kettle?" She asks, ever eager, and you feel a grin creep onto your face.

Your name is **Aradia Megido,** and you are in the middle of the desert discussing a rebellion with a childhood friend. Kanaya is tall and graceful and tired. Deep green bags ring her eyes like a second set of eyelids.

She sets a mug of tea in front of you with a small smile and sits beside you, holding her own mug in long thing fingers.

The tea smells like fruit and sun and rain. It is sweet and warm and perfect, and you hold the warm mug under your chin and let the steam thaw your stiff fingers.

Kanaya is watching you with a small smile, taking occasional sips of her own drink. You smile back and raise you mug in a 'cheers' gesture.

"Good?" She asks, and when you nod she flashes a smile that shows sharp teeth you will never quite be used to.

"Good." You confirm. "But we have a problem pretty far off from tea, if I remember correctly."

Kanaya's forehead knots in a frown and you tuck yourself in closer to her. There's the soft clack of her mug hitting the table, and the other girl wraps her arm around your shoulder.

"Yes, we do have something important to talk about. Karkat appears to need a hand." Her arm tightens minutely around you, her frown deepens.

"He needs a letter, yes?"

Kanaya nods.

You pause.

"Do you know anything about the sufferer?"

"Only that you mentioned him in the last chat we had." She is curious and concerned and warm against your side.

"The sufferer was a rebel centuries ago. One of the extremists that pops up from time to time, demanding equal treatment of all blood colours."

She nods again, shifting to lean her cheek on the top of your head.

"But he was different. He wasn't even on the hemospectrum. He had the same cherry-red Karkat apparently has. At that point, there were no lusi for trolls with that blood colour, so he would have been an orphan."

Kanaya sighs, with contentment or worry you do not know, and slouches further into the couch.

"So a troll who tended the mother grubs abandoned her post and took the grub, running away with him to be raised in secret."

She lifts her head. "A jade blood? What sign?" Jade bloods are few and far between. Kanaya's voice sings with loneliness.

You extract yourself from her arms and trace the swooping m on her chest.

"Virgo."

She pushes herself up and stares, first at you, then down at the symbol on her shirt.

"Aradia-" She is burning with curiosity.

You shake your head. This story is not about the Dolorosa. "This Jade blood raised the young sufferer into adulthood. He was said to have visions of a peaceful world, where blood was equal. At some point, he met The Disciple. They were matesprits, though it was said that their love was so great that it transcended the quadrants.

With the Dolorosa- that's the jade blood- and The Disciple, The sufferer set out to create the perfect world he had seen in his dreams. He refused to hurt anyone in his rebellion- he said he would make everyone listen, rather then killing soldiers and Highbloods just to prove a point. Along the way he met more and more trolls who agreed with his point of view. Most notably, he met a psionic who is still alive today, under the employ of the empress."

She turns to give you a look out of the corner of her eye.

"He's still alive?"

"The empress extended his lifespan to match her own. But that's not important."

Kanaya raises one eyebrow, and reaches for her tea.

"The Rebellion didn't go well, as I'm sure you guessed. The Sufferer was caught and publicly executed. The Dolorosa was sold into slavery, the Disciple fled to preserve the word of her dead lover. The empire tried very hard to wipe out all evidence that the sufferer even existed."

Kanaya is staring.

"What happened to the Dolorosa?" She asks finally.

"She became matesprits with a notorious blue-blooded pirate. They weren't even together a sweep when the pirate's Kismesiss murdered her."

Kanaya winces and shifts uncomfortably.

"Oh."

You drink the last of your tea.

"I just find it strange that, so many years later, the Sufferer's descendant is also trying to lead a peaceful rebellion."

Kanaya sighs, this long, drawn-out noise from deep in her chest.

"I suppose we should start on the letter then." She stands gracefully, and returns moments later with a pad of paper.

"Do we know the names of the people we're writing this letter to?"

Kanaya shakes her head, sitting down on the couch with the paper on her lap. You slide in beside her to get a closer look.

"Are we aiming to be formal?"

Kanaya shoots you an eyebrow raised smirk.

"No, we should spell 'you' and 'are' using one letter, we should use lowercase 'Is', and we should call the leaders Dude, Kid, Bro, or Bitch."

You snort. "I'm sure that would go over well."

Kanaya shoots you another, more sincere smile, a delicate grin under delicate cheekbones.

"I'm assuming we should be formal, then." You say, and her smile creeps larger. You catch a flash of needle-sharp teeth and look back to the paper.

You spend the next hours writing. The night creeps slowly back into day. Kanaya started playing with you hair at some point, braiding it and twisting it and letting it pour over her slender fingers.

She's exhausted. Deep green bags hang under her eyes, and she's less articulate then usual. She craves physical contact the way she always does when she doesn't sleep, can't sleep.

"There. I've finished typing it up. Why don't you send that off to Karkat?" She nods, pulling the husktop onto her lap. The battery whirs as she sends the letter.

**grimAuxiliatrix****[GA] ****sent a file to ****carcinoGeneticist****[CG]**

You take the computer from her, laying the warm machine on the table, and Kanaya slumps against you, like the laptop had drained her energy as well as it's battery's.

She stands with your help, and climbs into her recuperacoon, staring at you with bloodshot eyes. You smile at her and squeeze her hand and let her sink into the slime.

Then you sit on the couch and try not to fall asleep yourself. And you wait. Because Kanaya is sleeping, and you still have a job to do.


	8. Pirates and Politics

**carcinoGeneticist****[CG]****sent a file to ****curiousCourier [CC]**

Your computer pings gently, a small blue window popping up in the corner of the screen.

"Tag watch- update, User carcinoGeneticist, AKA Karkat Vantas has sent a file to _Error unknown person, user curiousCourier. _Message text: **carcinoGeneticist****[CG]****sent a file to ****curiousCourier [CC]**Search web for unknown username Yes/no"

You smirk, tap 'no' fluidly.

Who are you?

No one knows who you are. You've worked very hard to keep it that way. You swipe at the computer, pull up a box.

"Tag Watch: _gallowsCalibrator, adiosToreador, apocalypseArisen,_ _grimAuxiliatrix, ErrorSYSTEMerrorWARNING,_ _cuttlefishCuller,_ _centaursTesticle,_ _terminallyCapricious,_ _arsenicCatnip, caligulasAquarium,_ _arachnidsGrip,_ carcinoGeneticist"

Karkat's trollian handle is there last. You added him a couple weeks ago, when some activity on one of the other accounts alerted you to his presence. He'd been dead for three sweeps, or so you'd thought, so you hadn't bothered adding him earlier. You add 'curiousCourier' to the mix.

Almost immediately, a message pops up on screen.

"Tag watch- update, User curiousCourier, NAME UNKNOWN, has opened a memo on PRIVATE CHANNEL, NO ACCESS. Try access again? Yes/No"

It's probably time to contact your good pal 'ERRORSYSTEMERROR.' He's always a laugh.

**usernameHidden began trolling blankIp**

**UH: I see you're still hiding your identity.**

**BI: 2o are you.**

**UH: And you're still hanging onto that obnoxious typing quirk.**

**BI: Fuck you, ii do what ii want.**

**UH: Can what you want be 'giving me a hand'?**

**BI: depend2 on what you want. And how much you'll pay.**

**UH: So that's a yes? Awesome. Can you feed me into the memo this user's got going right now? ****curiousCourier**

**BI: That ii2 the briighte2t piink ii've ever 2een a2 a troliian colour. 2hiit'2 bliindiing.**

**UH: So can you do it?"**

**BI: Yeah, yeah. Here. ii hope they fiind you out.**

**UH: Fuck you 'two', Captor.**

**usernameHidden ceased trolling blankIp**

A memo pops up on your screen. It's got four trolls in it, all with very odd colours for their trollian text. There's bright pink- that's curiousCourier- and a deep green, darker then anything you've ever seen, with the name bloodFeud -charming- along with an almost grey blue, a pastel, who's called themselves armsMaster. Finally there's a strange two-colored name- a bright green and a purple-blue- named medusasMedicine.

**curiousCourier [CC] ****Opened memo 'Strange letter' on time stamp ERROR DATA UNAVAILABLE.**

**bloodFeud [BF] ****Joined the chat.**

**armsMaster [AM]**** Joined the chat.**

**medusas****Medicine****[mm]****/****[MM] ****Joined the chat.**

**[CC]: Glad all of you could make it. We've got something ?retty im?ortant to discuss. **

**[BF]: WhAt is it? MakE !t , Ca1ypso! Go{ shlt to do!**

**[AM]: I'^^ sure your busi^ess is ^^ore i^^porta^t the^ the i^tegrity of our institutio^. I'^^ sorry we are asking you to sacrifice your precious ti^^e. **

**[mm]: i'd hate to busst in, but maybe we sshould let the persson who made thiss fucking memo talk for a bit.**

**[CC]: Remember our rules around ?rofanity, ?lease. **

**[CC]: But yes, we do have to get to it. I received a rather strange letter this morning. Here.**

**curiousCourier [CC] posted a link to a document**

You'd forgotten what a pain it was to get used to new typing quirks. The dark green asshole seems to be the worst- everyone else has pretty normal quirks.

The letter's cute. A little hard to understand, but well-worded.

"Dear educational facility,

It has come to my attention that you are planning a violent rebellion against the hemospectrum. While I whole-heartedly support the ideals behind this, I wish that you would consider doing to in a more peaceful way. Rather then killing the other trolls, we could try talking to them, convincing them to help.

I know that violence may seem the right answer to the problem, but where would we be without the 'normal' trolls in our society? Some posses skills that are once-in-a-millennia, and it would be a shame to throw them away.

I am aware that you are angry, you have every right to be. But this does not justify mass murder. Please consider a peaceful rebellion, it is the only option for a peaceful future.

Think about the strong minds that would be lost if you chose to wipe out the hemospectrum, the scholars, the scientests, whose only crime was blood, just as yours is.

Think about the lonely Lusi and empty hives, the ships floating in empty space. Think, if you will, about the wrigglers. Just for a moment, think about the young and the denfenceless, those who have never harmed you.

Think of all you could destroy, and all you could save, all you could gain in working with the hemospectrum and not against it.

-A concerned troll."

**[MM]: Who'ss it from? Are they inside the sschool?**

What school? And what was all this about a rebellion?

**[CC]: It's from Karkat Vantas. **

**[CC]: The red blood.**

Karkat's a redblood? Huh. You always pictured him one of those needlessly angry Highbloods who were like, totally raging against their place in society by hiding their blood colour, man.

**[AM]: Ah, the Sig^less's brood. **

**[CC]: Yeah. **

**[CC]: The ?uestion now is,**

**[MM]: Where did he get the idea for a peaceful rebellion from?**

**[CC]: Exactly. We've been ?retty careful covering our tracks, haven't we?**

**[BF]: We'r3 more Airtigh7 then II's aS$!**

**[AM]: I will be wounded for the rest of my days.**

**[mm]: look, i really don't give a sshit where this kid got hiss ideass from, can we just lock him up or sstun him into ssubmission or ssomething? **

**[mm]: all thiss waiting iss ssuch bullsshit.**

**[AM]: Oh, good, you're back.**

**[mm]: fuck you too.**

**[CC]: Wait, what was that you said?**

**[mm]: fuck you too?**

**[CC]: Before that.**

**[MM]: I believe it wass "can we just lock him up or sstun him into ssubmission or ssomething? all thiss waiting iss ssuch bullsshit."**

**[BF]: I gree with t#e freaky tVVo-snace-venom shick. Let'$ sLap 'im si11y.**

**[CC]: Hmmm. **

**[CC]: You may be right, actually.**

**[CC]: Shock and awe could be the way to go.**

**[AM]: ^^aybe we should co^sider the letter's ^^essage. Perhaps ^^ass-^^urder is^'t the best soloutio^. **

**[CC]: The first signless was crazy, ?eri. **

**[CC]: He was hallucinating about another reality.**

**[CC]: He was some sort of ?erverted sex-fiend who died swearing in the face of a failed rebellion.**

**[AM]: Well, there is that. What, the^, do you propose we do?**

**[mm]: i think what sshe wantss to do, but doessn't have the fucking bulge to ssay, iss that we sshould sshow the sseedlingss what our weapon can fucking **_**do**_

**[MM]: The Greenblood?**

**[mm]: fuck yess the greenblood.**

**[MM]: That seems cruel, even for you.**

**[BF]: Kan y0u guws stqp ar9ueing w:th Yovrself? It makes my Head hur7.**

**[AM]: I agree with him.**

**[CC]: So we show them what the glub can do to s?ectrum trolls.**

**[CC]: All in favor?**

**[CC]: And m, you still only count as one vote.**

**[mm]: bullshit.**

**[MM]: Poppycock. **

**[AM]:… I suppose.**

**[BF]: Hell yea#!**

**[mm]: count me in!**

**[MM]: I say no-**

**[MM]: Drat.**

**[CC]: And I agree too. That's a solid three- one victory. **

**[CC]: Tommorow, ten o'clock. Send out the memo now, would you?**

**[MM]: Yes Ma'am.**

**medusas****Medicine ****[mm]****/****[MM] ****has left the chat.**

**[AM]: I suppose I'll ready the tech^ology for the ^^or^ing**

**[AM]: See you to^^orrow.**

**armsMaster [AM] ****has left the chat.**

**[BF]: I'll c if eye c n gEt any nnore ()ut of t#at grE3nblood!**

**bloodFeud [BF] ****has left the chat.**

**[CC]: See you all tomorrow, then.**

**CuriousCourier [CC] ****Has left the chat.**

**CuriousCourier [CC] ****Has closed the memo.**

You file the memo away and send a copy to Sollux, who's no doubt already seen it. You are stir crazy and your eye is burning from the glare of the screen, and the whispers of Gl'bgolyb and a rebellion are shoved to the back of your mind.

Above decks there is a bustle of activity, trolls darting to and fro stacking boxes and steering slightly to this side of that side or sharpening blades or drinking.

There is a crackle of static in the decks of the boat, like pressing your tongue to a battery, and faint white sparks flutter up and down the furled sails.

The deck shifts, groans, as something beneath it stirs, something white and eight-legged and massive.

"Ship to port!" Yells a greenblood, and you shoot him a grin and juggle dice across your knuckles.

"Turn port!" You yell, and drop the dice into your pocket. The ship groans and smells of ozone and you grip your sword tighter as you bear down on the smaller ship.

It skitters like a frightened squeak beast as you get nearer, puts on a burst of speed, then died in a flicker of maroon sparks, drifting slowly, powerless.

You are Vriska Serket, pirate captain, spy master, information gatherer, lusus-feeder, and the politics on Alternia couldn't bother you any less at the moment.

You toss a ladder off your ship and give a yell and jump after it, beheading the first troll you see, splattering teal across the floorboards. Spidermom will eat well tonight.

A brownblood lurches towards you on a broken ankle and you use him to kill his captain. The fight is over before it's started and your crew spit out bloody teeth and count the cargo on the ship.

There is a line of half-alive trolls on board you boat, ranging from red to yellow, and one by one they walk the plank into your mother's maw, like hundreds of troll before them, filing docilely to their deaths.

Lambs to the slaughter. You laugh because it's easy, _too_ easy, and nothing ever fit in your life as well as piracy did. And you almost long for those whispers of Gl'bgolyb that are somehow tied to a childhood acquaintance pan out, because as fun as piracy is, you're took good at it. It's boring!

You watch as the crew hauls cargo onto the deck and feel the rumble of psionics through the hull and watch as space pours by, and think that you were born for this.

**AN: The NaNoWriMo bug hit me hard, and I forgot to tell you guys I wouldn't be updating in November. Obviously, the solution to that problem was to update in November anyway. Expect another chapter in December. (I couldn't have waited three days to write this, apparently.) Enjoy!**


	9. Songs and Savages

Your name is **Karkat Vantas, **and your husktop is chirping insistently. Light is streaming into your room and your eyes are gummy with sleep. You shift and try to ignore the noises, hoping that maybe the husktop won't beep again.

You are in a warm, drifting state of half-asleep when the chat client dings again and you haul yourself out of bed, only mostly awake, warm and vague with sleep

You drop into your chair and wipe sopor on the desk and click on the little blue M jumping impatiently in your chumroll.

**arachnidsGrip** **[AG]** **began trolling ****carcinoGeneticist [CG]**

**[AG]: Hey Karkat.**

**[CG]: SWEET MOTHER OF FUCK WHY ARE YOU CONTACTING ME?**

**[CG]: I THOUGHT YOU ASSHOLES ALL THOUGHT I WAS DEAD.**

**[CG]: DO YOU KNOW WHAT FUCKING TIME IT IS, VRISKA?**

**[AG]: I missed you too.**

**[CG]: WE NEVER EVEN TALKED WHEN WE WERE KIDS.**

**[CG]: WHAT DO YOU WANT?**

**[AG]: Just saying hi.**

**[AG]: And keep Terezi safe, cra88y.**

**[AG]: Keep her close today.**

**[CG]: WAIT, WHAT? WHY?**

**[AG]: L8t's just s8y that I have it on auth8rity that shit is going to go down today.**

**[AG]: And keep in mind,**

**[AG]: if she dies,**

**[AG]: I will 8lame you.**

**[AG]: I can 888% guarantee that you will not like me when I am angry.**

**[AG]: Talk to you later, Karcra8.**

**[CG]: VRISKA, FUUCKING WAIT A GODDAMN SECOND.**

**[CG]: WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN? WHAT AUTHORITY?**

**arachnidsGrip** **[AG]****ceased trolling ****carcinoGeneticist [CG]**

**[CG]: GODDAMNIT.**

You remember Vriska as the rough, cruel, arrogant friend of Terezi's who flipped quadrants as easily as she rolled her damn dice. You didn't talk much.

And now she'd found out you were alive, and warned you about danger. And she hadn't said shit about the bright red font you're using now, even though she'd always been the one to needle you about putting your blood colour on your text when you were young.

You shut the husktop and rub at your eyes, but it's too late to go back to sleep, so you shower and dress and are considering waking Terezi when the speakers crackle to life.

"All trolls expected in the auditorium for a special demonstration. Repeat, all trolls to the auditorium."

You hear shifting and grumbling from the next room. The PA system has woken Terezi for you.

She trips into your room, sharp-boned and smattered with bruising and slow with sopor. She is still limping and moves gingerly to your side, all winces and regret.

"Evening."

She growls something inaudible and stumbles slightly, coughing in this sick, wounded way that cannot be fun with cracked ribs and leans against you, cool and dry and rougher then sandpaper. You lead her to the auditorium, and she leans on you a little too much to be comfortable, but you don't mind.

The chat with Vriska has affected you more then you want to admit and you hug Terezi tighter. Her elbows knife into you and her teeth part in a razor-bladed grimace and you limp along.

Your name is **Equius Zahhak, **and you are one of the last people to enter the auditorium. There are few seats left, and you sit in a small pocket of three chairs, huddled against the aisle with two seats on your left.

Karkat and Terezi sit next to you. He is grumpy and baggy-eyed and he moves sharply, almost mechanically, a fluid swivel of well-oiled joints.

Terezi moves like rusty knives. She moves like nails on a chalkboard. She is jerky and sharp and hurt and her fine features are marred by bruises you know you are responsible for.

You brush your fingertips along a scab of your own, straight and deep as the others she'd given you.

Karkat shoots you a glare and you look away from Terezi, and up at the stage.

The leader is standing on stage, and she is moving fluidly across the stage, balanced and poised like a dancer, thrumming with the strength only Highbloods possessed. She smiles out at the crowd, flashing needle-thin teeth.

"You may be wondering why I called you all here so early in the evening."

Grumbles, trolls picking bits of sopor from their hair with sleep-slurred hands, clumsy and stiff-fingered.

"We received a letter recently, from an anonymous source, telling us that our rebellion was wrong, cruel, even."

Karkat stiffens and Terezi looks down at him, concerned. Hisses of outrage roll through the crowd like a bassline.

"We do not yet know who sent the letter, but we are making efforts to find out. In the meantime, we have gathered you here to tell you why we are doing what we are doing- we are here to remind you of the purpose of our revolution. Here to remind you that these are not empty words, tat we have the power to do what we must." She steps back a little, a half-movement, a tick rather then a conscious decision. Rolls her shoulders, visibly relaxes.

"We, the leaders of this institute, are the oldest of all of you. I am the oldest of the four leaders here. I don't know how long I will live, and neither do any of you. I eat as much and grow and fast as someone in the green range, but my skin is cool, and my blood is pink, and I have the gills of a seadweller. In case you needed a clear reminder that I am a mutant, even my horns are strange."

Every eye in the room flickers to the four-set of horns, sideways glances trying not to stare.

"There are those who would say I was lucky, not knowing what my lifespan had in store for me. There are those who say that it is better to not know at all then to know you will live a mere twenty five sweeps."

She sighs, a whole-body breath, rippling from her shoulders to her knees.

"Those people are viewed as people. And we are not. Do we need any other reason to fight?"

She sighs again, a rolling, almost desperate sound. "There are even those whose mutations are more severe then yours, whose difference isn't beneath their skin. Those who, unlike you, will never be allowed outside, who cannot pass as a regular troll."

Murmurs. Questions. Karkat looks at Terezi, a concerned, questioning glance.

"I will hand the microphone to my friend and fellow leader to continue." The pink-blooded troll melted offstage and a man who's muscles seem to be made of stone stomps on, moving jerkily, every movement larger then it needed to be.

"HI." He says. He has nondescript horns that curl vaguely forwards and deep, black-green blood.

"I suppose you're all curious about what C-"

He frowns. "'bout what Samudra told you. We've got another branch of the institute, for those who can't be seen until we've taken control of the situation for good."

He whistles, and a small troll files onstage. He is barely four feet tall, childlike, with short, stunted horns, and looks normal at first glance, though tiny. He moves jerkily, skitters, almost.

"This is Mykeart." He says. Mykeart looks over the crowd with beetle-black eyes and ducks behind the larger troll's legs, all elbows and sharp steps. But you had seen what was wrong already.

The troll on stage was trying to comfort his small companion, shooshing him gently. The little troll comes back on stage, and you get your first good look.

His skin is strangely plated, more of a shell than anything. His hands are barely hands, fingers small, his mouth is split by two enormous mandibles, insectile and black and deeply wrong. The skin around his mouth is bleeding, oozing teal as the insectile jaws chafe his skin. He is half-grub, like he was caught and stuck in the middle of maturing.

"He is ten sweeps old, and he came to us as a grub. He has not been outside since. There are lots of trolls like him."

The little grub-troll has skittered back behind the man's legs.

"There are some people who have kept extra limbs or were born without eyes or horns or arms. Those who kept their shells from grubhood. Those who never made it past the grub stage at all."

You can picture the mutants in your mind, twisted to fit shells too small for their bodies, dying young, too-soft skin snapping exoskeletons like soggy cardboard.

"These trolls will never be allowed outside. Even those most accepting of purebloods will meet these people with Sneering and Fighting, rather then the camaraderie and love-" He chuckles. "Or hate- that they deserve."

He picks up the strange, shelled troll. "Why should this troll be worth any less then you? Why should you be worth any less then the purebloods? Why do those who would kill innocent children deserve to live?"

He smiles, a cold, to-many-teeth sort of smile.

This speech was less inspiring and more stomach-twisting, unsettling.

"So we're going to show you what kinda' firepower we got, just in case you don't believe that we can kill those against us." He jostles the small, insectile troll on one hip and stomps offstage, replaces by a stiff, over-formal sort of troll who clearly thinks very carefully before she places each step. She's tall and elegant, with horns that curve at the tips and cross each other and a silver-blue glow in her cheeks.

"I'm the last one who is going to talk to you today." She said. "A long time ago, the Empress got lazy. She decided that her lusus could feed itself. She stopped hunting for Gl'bgolyb."

She smiled, a wry sort of smile. "Gl'bgolyb wasn't very happy about this. In fact, Gl'bgolyb was so unhappy that she started complaining. And then she complained a little louder. And then a little louder."

Terezi looks uncomfortable and Karkat looks puzzled and they are leaning ever so slightly towards each other.

"And Gl'bgolyb got so loud that trolls started to die. Every troll from mid-green down died, in fact. And everyone from about teal down got very, very sick. Because the Highbloods- the highblood _purebloods_ got lazy."

There is uncomfortable muttering, and the silvery troll traces a finger along her podium.

"In her laziness, however, we benefited. Because even then, this institute existed, and more importantly, every troll in this institute survived. And we managed to record the sound, Gl'bgolyb's whisper. And re-create its effect here, in the institute."

She snapped. A thin, muscled troll rolled a cart onstage. She is wearing a tee-shirt and jeans and looks very underdressed next to the slender, sliver-blue troll in the dress.

"We found this troll in our institute. She was wandering the halls, and she is, as you can see,"

The troll reaches the tip of a knife into a cage and is rewarded by a squeal and a whimper.

"On the hemospectrum."

The knife is dripping olive. It's dripping grass. It's dripping springtime plant growth green. It is seeping from the cage like a poison. Terezi is staring at you, wary, angry, and you are staring at the green-green blood that is dripping from the knife and wondering and your mind is reeling.

"We're going to bring you into a special room now, and show you what the vast glub can do to you, and what it can do to a troll who is on-spectrum.

You stand steadily as a horse in it's first hours and stumble on shock-drunk legs and you can do nothing but follow the crowd and feel the throb of the diamond-scar carved into your wrist.

_Pale for you._

Your name is **Karkat Vantas, **and you are watching Terezi closely. She has desperate panic in her eyes. Equius is falling apart, and Terezi is staring at him with the sort of wide-eyed insistence that you know is supposed to convey a message but it doesn't quite.

Her hand is blood-spectrum blue in yours, tense and slim and nervous. The crowd carries you onwards, and Equius moves like a man broken, he looks small, and weak, and he could crush your skull like a particularly fragile eggshell.

It has been a while since you've seen Nepeta. You never really talked with her- the strange, role-playing cat troll in a quadrant with the sweaty freak.

But you know she was a green blood, and Terezi said she was here, and Equius, the toughest, coldest man you've ever met, is shattered before you.

Terezi gives your hand a squeeze, stares into you with blood red eyes, gives a sharp little smile that shivers with hidden nerves. You squeeze back, and you follow.

Because what else can you do?

They lead you to a room with soundproofed walls that swallow noise until the silence is a physical presence. Terezi frowns, delicate wrinkles between razor-sharp brows.

"What's wrong?" You say, and your voice is cloaked in cotton.

"I can't _hear._" She says, and there's distress in her voice, she's blinder then she was before. You squeeze her hand and when the silvery troll tells you to take a seat you sit next to her. She seems grateful for the contact.

When everyone is sitting, the cage opens. The little greenblood curls into a bruisy ball that makes your throat clog.

She's tiny. Birdlike and thin and young, too young, she's small and fragile and naked and her shoulder blades and spine jut through her skin like grave markers.

She is shivering.

"Christ, Karkat, its a little kid." Terezi says, and the little kid shivers and makes this wet coughing sound that does funny things to your chest.

You risk a glance at Zahhak, and he's got his eyes squeezed tight, not looking, bright blue oozing out from under his eyelids.

The four leaders each grab a limb of the tiny kid and lift her up- she is sun burnt and blind, skin singed green and eyes seared red by the desert. It's not Nepeta, though. Too young, too small, the horns are wrong.

She is no spy. She is a lost child, crying and terrified, breathing coming too fast, and your stomach is tying itself in knots.

"Fuck." You say, and Terezi leans into you, hard, and you need the contact because the blind little girl is seeking your eyes with her ruined ones, catlike ears swiveling slightly to find some sympathy but the room is swallowing your sound.

"Karkat Vantas." Says the thin, Jeans-and-a-t-shirt troll, and you look up.

Thank every god your poker face is better then it was three sweeps ago because sobs are threatening to break through your mask of mild interest.

"Yes Ma'am?"

"Come here, please." You stand, and Terezi squeezes your wrist, whispers a quick good luck.

"Please secure this troll while we cue the sound."

You nod and grab her skinny, fragile little wrists, and she turns to you, eyes wide, blinking hard as if to see.

"Asshole." The leader mutters, and kicks you in the shin as she leaves, the others filing after, and you can feel her pulse, too-fast, panicked, and you can hear her heartbeat, fluttering, and she is panicked, and trying to escape, to die, to sleep, but you are too strong for her to do anything but wait.

"Please." She says, and her voice is desert-dry, and she is a pile of bones in your arms. You scoop her up, hold her close, shoosh her until she settles, just a little, and stares at you with eyes that are too familiar for her face, eyes you know.

You glance and Terezi and she smiles, sadly, nods a little, and you kneel around this bundle of doomed troll and she _clings_ to you.

"Commencing sound in three…" The voice is thin and too loud and too quiet and shh, shh, it'll be okay.

"Two…"

You hug the perfect stranger to you and tell her about you, your hopes and dreams and she looks up at you with this weak little smile as you lie and tell her everything is going to be all right.

"One…"

"Hey, look at me." It's a dumb thing to say but she glances up and you smile. "Listen. It'll be okay. You gotta do what I say, okay?"

The noise starts, and it's a deep in your throat keen. It's a buzz, it's a thought, it's a feeling, it sounds like screams and howls and the deep unknowable things of the ocean, the gentle rush of a tide and the whisper of creatures in the black of the sea slithering across each other and the little girl in your lap tenses.

"You have to grab my hand, okay? Hard as you need to, and keep quiet. Come here, stand with me, that's a girl, you're doing great."

She is shaky and vibrating, and you pretend not to see the trickle of blood leaking from her ear.

"Now I want you to just look me in the eye. You'll be fine if you do that, you hear me? It'll be okay." And she won't, and it won't, but you can lie for her.

She nods, and you hold her up because her legs give out, and the trolls in the crowd are disinterested or looking away, and she is gripping your hand too hard and the sound is grinding on and on, high and low and ancient, and you pick her up, hug her to your chest, a bundle of bones and blood, and her lungs rattle wetly.

She shakes, and keens, and lifts her head up to stare at the audience until she stops moving entirely, and the noise shuts off as suddenly as it had started. You are stained green with tears and blood, and you let her body fall to the floor and search for Terezi and your head is spinning and you have to throw up but not here, not in front of these people.

Terezi is shaking with barely-suppressed coughs and there is blood trickling from her nose. Her eyes are wide and panicked and her face is creased with pain.

You grab her hand and pull her out of the room. She is too big to carry and you wish you were taller, but you can just run.

Behind you, there is a scream like waves crashing, like the deep rumble of train over tracks, a heart-broken bass note that vibrates in the base of your skull and unlocks your tears and you run.

Your name is **Terezi Pyrope, **and your head is aching. It is burning all the way into your eye sockets, burning like the day the sun seared away your vision, and there is only the burning and the warm hand on your wrist and Karkat hauls you away.

Dimly, the pain recedes. You come back you yourself as a cool cloth wipes the sweat from your face and a hot hand rubs your back. Blink, breathe deep, take a moment to sort out your mind and you are in Karkat's room.

Every line of him is etched with concern, his arms tense and his brow is knotted like sailor's line. You cough and say "Fuck."

He laughs, a nervous little sound, and he's still covered in blood- dried now- green and sickly.

"Yeah."

You sit up a little, take the cloth from him, ignore the dull ache in the front of your skull.

"Karkat, we've gotta shut these people down."

His hand comes off your back, he wrings his fingers and tenses, and you can see gears whirring behind his eyes.

"We can't." He says, and the lies in his words are smeared all over him in olive.

"Karkat…" You say, gently, and his shoulders slump and he leans away from you and sighs, a heavy, tired sigh.

"We can't." He says again, and his voice is cracked and broken.

"Terezi, these are good people. We can't shut this place down, they'd have nowhere to go."

He looks at you with eyes glazed in red tears. "_I'd_ have nowhere to go. Do you know what happens to people like me out there?" He is desperate and talking too fast and you let him.

"There's no food, no water, no sopor- the only resources that have been spent on trolls like me are gasoline and matches. Everything we are was taken from us by people like you. People with blood just the right shade of blue. I would die out there. We all would."

"I would take you with me. You could live in my room, you'd be okay." But he's shaking his head, eyes weary.

"I can't end up just another Nepeta." He says, and swallows, and a neon tear splashes on the floorboards.

"I can't live alone, wanting, dreaming of the outside, ending up a red stain and a burnt corpse because some of your co-workers decided to follow rumors with knives and a pail."

He is speaking high and fast now, like if he pauses you might stop him, like he has to say this, and tension in etched in every line of him, he is a wound spring, he will flee and never return if you say one wrong thing. So you let him talk.

"I can't end up just a red stain between the floor boards in your bedroom that you can't quite clean, my legacy cannot be a smear of blood that reminds everyone that I should have died. Terezi, I am more than that. I need to be more then that. I can change things."

He looks at you with bright-wet eyes. "I need to change things. Out there, I'm not even a person. Do you know what that's like? To be nothing, not even worthy of a name, not worthy of sentience? Do you know what it's like to be imaginary?"

He is winding himself up, hands balling into fists, and the tears are coming faster now, drawing red tracks through the green caked on his face.

"I can't end up like that. I need to be someone. I won't end up another half-remembered failure."

"In here, I can do that. You can't take that away, Terezi, you can't. You can't take my future away. I have to exist, I have to be acknowledged. The only people who care about me out there want to kill me."

His voice is choked and quiet and his sobs are full of glass.

"We can be something. Karkat Vantas is more then red blood, Terezi. He's a person, and he will be more then that. And the other people here, they're the same. Every one of them. You can't take that away because we're getting over exited. Hell, if you killed me every time _I_ got a little exited, I'd be dead!"

He laughs, nervously, smiles a little, like he's not sure how.

And you put a had on his shoulder and say, real gentle, "Karkat."

And he looks at you, betrayal and shock roll off him. "Fuck you!" He says, and he stands up, blows by you, out the door. You hear it swing shut and wait for him to return.

It is many hours when the door opens again, and you are instantly awake, tilting your head to hear unsteady, shuffling footsteps. Karkat sinks to the ground with a thud and you walk over to him, sit next to him.

His eyes are bloodshot and baggy, his breath stinks of sopor and other, stronger things, he is smiling a little, showing rows of too-many dull teeth, breathing unevenly, staring at you glassy-eyed.

"Karkat." You say again, and he smiles at the sound of his name, reaches for your hand and squeezes gently.

He is dull where he is normally razor-sharp, he is yielding where he is normally stubborn, he is slow and stupid and animalistic where he is usually quick and smart and smug.

He is happy where he is usually scarred and you wonder if it is kinder to let him stay like this, to feed him more of whatever he took.

He blinks at you, slow, steady, and frowns like he is trying to remember something.

"Are you okay?" You ask, and he shakes his head to clear it, frowns, rubs at his face.

"Let me," He speaks slowly, slurred, uncertain. "Show you." He says, and reaches up to cup your cheek in drugged stupor.

The pain you are not prepared for, and you flinch away from him, a line of blood trickling into your shirt where he had scratched you.

"Karkat-"

He shakes his head and cuts shallow line into his own cheek, stands uncertainly, like he's still not quite sure what he's doing. He moves with joints full of cement, and you follow.

Out of the building, into the cool evening air. It is almost day and you want to stop him, but he's moving too fast and he's determined now.

Through the desert, crossing roads, passing outcroppings of civilization and walking through kilometers of empty sand.

The city is hunched on the horizon like a fat toad, belching oily smoke that fills your nose from here. The desert gives way to greasy roads and filthy sidewalks, maintained by kids who don't give a shit about the way their city looks. Karkat drags you into the heart of the city, holds tight to your hand.

He grows sharper every foot you walk, the drugs draining out of him and bringing a clarity and determination.

"Karkat." You hiss, and he looks at you with baggy, bloodshot eyes and a half-smile. He puts a hand on his weapon and looks up at the apartment buildings as their inhabitants drag themselves onto the street.

A kid in the area is always something to be wary of. When someone you didn't know came anywhere near your old house, the sword came out, and the troll was driven off your property as fast as they could run.

You are old and bleeding and bruised. You are taller then most of the trolls and unfamiliar, with a strange symbol and a strange colour standing next to someone with the same symbol in an even stranger colour. There are matching gashes on your cheek oozing alien blood.

They are hostile. They hiss and sway in the way crowds do, watching you warily, hands on weapons, teeth bared. Karkat is at your side with his sickle in his hand, staring over the crowd and looking almost resigned. There is steel in his fingers, and they squeeze your wrist once. A couple kids are eyeing the blood on your cheeks but most haven't notices yet.

You draw your sword with a hiss of steel on steel, and it sets a blueblood off. He runs at you with a broadsword and screams, and Karkat neatly sidesteps and cuts off one of the troll's horns.

He gives a surprised bellow, whole body going manikin-stiff, grey eyes wide, sword point dipping to the ground. He holds the twisted horn tip in his hand, shocked and sad and angry, and he melts back into the crowd.

Whispers swirl around you like the hiss of wind in trees, and the mob of children closes in, calling for your blood, and you remember the colour that is running in your veins.

Karkat steps towards a brownblood with enormous horns, who brandishes a spear with a bone handle and a yellow horn-tip point.

The brownblood looks at Karkat with wide eyes, and stabs at him.

Your half-sober redblood dips out of the way, but the spear tip grazes him on the way by.

Dead silence. You can hear the harsh breathing of the brownblood, the low, instinctual growl that is building in the crowd, a predatory sound that raised your neck hairs and makes your ears flatten.

Karkat is playing the frightened troll to a T. He holds up his sickle in front of his chest, his ears turn down, his eyes widen, he hunches over.

"Sorry, I'm sorry, we were just passing through. We can find somewhere else. Right, TZ?"

He is putting on a show and you play along. "Yeah, we can go. We don't have much money, but I can give you what we have, and we'll just be on our way."

There is blood in the air. There is a sort of bloodthirsty hunger in every canine grin. There is thirst in the blades of weapons. They want nothing more then to kill you.

A sharp, short pain stabs into your back, just under the shoulder blade. A tiny redblood with a dagger is letting pastel splash to the cobblestones.

Karkat grabs your hand, and you look at him.

"Meet me at the east edge of the city. Get out however you can." He slips into the crowd, and they split off after him. Those who remain converge on you, surging like a breaking wave and trying to drag you under.

They pull at your clothes and claw at your skin and spit insults and cut at everything they touch, they are desperate to destroy you.

You slash and stab at ankles and feet and you are no longer feigning fear. You are almost overrun, there is someone with your blood colour sitting on your chest, dripping teal from small cuts, and he's got a dagger to your throat.

Karkat hits him like a five-foot stack of bricks and the crowd _hisses._ This clicking, rasping sound that washes over you as they spot you together again. They growl and every one of the kids' hairs is standing up and every tooth and weapon is bared.

Karkat cuts an arc of blue blood and pulls you through the space it leaves behind and you run.

Your name is **Karkat Vantas, **and everything seems like a better idea when you're high.

Terezi is shivering and bleeding and her heart is beating like a jackrabbit and she is staring at you wide wide-eyed terror. You run until the city is a smudge on the horizon, and you rest, and you run some more.

When you get back to your room it is somewhere near midnight, and it is hard to avoid people as you weave your way back to your room. Terezi follows you without question.

Your couch is safe and comfortable, and you curl up next to her and let her shiver for a while.

"I'm sorry." Because you dragged her into the city and let her see what you saw, a tiny fraction of hat you saw and you don't want anyone to go through what you did.

"Karkat." She says, and she tucks her chin over your head, breathing gently. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. You must have had it so much worse- I just-" She sighs, and Miracle of miracles, Terezi Pyrope is at a loss for words.

"It's okay." You say, but it's not, and she tells you so.

"I'll help you fix it." She says. "But not the way they're trying to do it."

You nod and she takes out her phone and you sit and contact all of your old friends and there, on the couch, leaning on each other, adrenaline draining, you plant the seeds of a revolution.


	10. End of Act 1

Your name is **Sollux Captor**, and the whole world is spinning around you like planets around a sun. Nothing is concrete, the world is fluid knowledge, you know everything, you are everything.

The stars are blurring and everything is moving fast enough to fill your mind with thought. You are plugged in, you are in control, you could move entire solar systems if you wanted to.

"Captor." Someone snaps, and you drift back to earth, eyes dry, head aching.

"Yeah." You reply, rubbing at your temples. The captain is standing in the doorway, sharp eyebrows raised, standing ramrod-straight. "Captain." You nod an acknowledgement.

"Unplug. You've got news from on-planet. Sound serious."

"Right away, ma'am."

The captain clicks away in a blur of polished boots and pressed uniform, and you pull away from the ship, removing a small plug from the base of your skull.

The world is small and too sharp, and a small part of your brain is nervously tapping its foot, looking for a program to run in the background. You are already bored, impatient.

The computer is sluggish, and a distant corner of your mind starts whirring away, wondering how to speed it up.

A note pops up onscreen, scrawled in hasty teal.

"Captain." You say, pressing an ear to the headset. "I'm taking those vacation hours now. I'll bring us in to dock, then I'm going off-planet."

"You need a ship, Captor?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Take the escape pod."

"Thank you. Bringing her in now."

The ship drifts to port in a flicker of blue-red light, and you slide down the brightly lit corridors and sever the connection with the ship entirely, jetting off towards the distant speck of Alternia.

The part of you that isn't a ship is turning over her message in your mind, wondering, running scenarios, telling yourself not to get your hopes up.

Your name is **Feferi Peixes,** andsomeone familiar is sending you a yellow-tinged message, alarmed.

Sollux Captor promises he'll be right there, and he's asking if the rumors are true.

**[CC]: W)(at rumors?**

The reply comes faster then anyone could possibly type, in urgent, lisping mustard.

**[TA]: The rumor2, FF, the rumor2. TZ didn't clue you iin? Karkat'2 alive, he'2 around, he'2 planning 2ome 2ort of 2hiitty reunion. 2omethiing iimportant'2 goiing down.**

**[TA]: Here, II'll paste iin the message.**

**[TA]: SOLLUX, K4RK4T 4ND 1 4R3 1N 4 B1T OF TROUBLE. POT3NT14LLY 3V3RY OTH3R TROLL 1N TH3 UN1V3RS3 1S TOO. COM3 4S F4ST 4S YOU C4N, YOUR L1F3 4CTU4LLY D3P3NDS ON 1T. TH3 OTH3RS W1LL B3 TH3R3. **

**[TA]: There'2 more, two. Vriiska'2 really bothered about 2omething, and you hear whisper2 when you hang around onliine liike ii do. **

**[TA]: Probably nothiing, ii'm using up my vacatiion day2 for some dumb prank.**

**[TA]: lea2t ii fuckiing have vacatiion day2.**

**[TA]: 2ee you at Kanaya's. **

Terezi has been known to crack jokes, and those jokes have been known to spiral out of control. But this is different. This seems urgent. This seems real.

You send another message, to a different person entirely, and jet to the surface, telling the guards to take care of your lusus while you're gone.

The water gets lighter as you rise, and dry air is strange after so long under the surface, but you cough and adjust and blink in the sunlight. You can manage.

The sun is warm and you dry quickly as you sit on the beach to wait.

Your name is **Eridan Ampora**, and you are surrounded by luxury. The halls gleam gold and fuchsia, shimmering as the water around you moves and ripples.

Guards stand at every door, men and women older then you, with uniforms printed in the purple of their blood, holding spears and swords forged from gold.

And your moirail is the master of it all. These guards are here for her, the walls were made for her, this palace crafted to house her, to help her protect her lusus.

The staircase spirals downwards, and you are headed as deep as you can go. You journey a step further each day- eventually, you will join Feferi at her caregiver's side, pressure be damned.

The guards nod as you drift past- they see you every day, they know you by now.

Your ears pop gently, a pressure builds deep in your chest, and the water darkens, lit only by soft lantern light.

"Mr. Ampora sir." A nervous, panting voice calls to you from the top of the stairs. Must be new staff- they know not to interrupt you when you're taking your evening swim.

"Yes?"

"Message from the empress, sir."

From Feferi? What's so urgent that it couldn't wait until lunch?

"Thank you." The page is barely five sweeps- just a kid, really- and you take the note from him and kick towards Fef's chambers as fast as you can.

She's not there. The note says as much- there's an emergency onshore, one that threatens all of troll kind. She says she needs to see to it. She says she needs your help.

Sweeps ago, you would have rushed after her without a second's thought, but you are old and mature now. You know now that she can handle herself. You're very glad you're all grown up.

Your lusus is in your room, and you fit the saddle over him- there is no time to summon a stable hand. Your gun is oiled and ready for use, and you strap it across your shoulders.

You hop onto your lusus and tuck a dagger into your boot and flick the reigns. You hope you didn't keep her waiting too long.

Your name is **Tavros Nitram**, and you are standing stiffly at attention as the teal-blooded officer inspects your living quarters.

You are the only lowblood in the entirety of the Cavalreapers to be this highly ranked, and to your left and right are green through to lower blues.

The officer likes you because you are polite and neat and strong. He nods at you and smiles and tugs on the corner of your bed sheet and checks the edge on your sword.

"Neat as always, Nitram." You nod and he smiles and moves on, rubbing your lusus on the ear as he walks past.

Your phone vibrates silently against your leg, and you twist stiffly to retrieve it. Nepeta hasn't called in a while, you're glad-

This is not Nepeta. This is someone who types in red all-caps and swears a lot. You never spoke much, but you kind of remember the shouty little troll with the small horns. He was kind of endearingly prickly towards everyone, like a hedgehog.

This is not that troll. He is formal and polite around the swearwords.

"Tavros, Me and Terezi are on-planet. We're in Fuck-tons of trouble. Meet us at Kanaya's hive if you can remember how to get there. You life literally fucking depends of it, so please hurry."

The strange mix of the word fuck and the word please make it seem like someone helped him write the-

"Nitram." You glance up- the officer's gone, and a broad-shouldered greenblood is staring at you with narrowed eyes.

"What do you have that's so much more interesting then all of this?"

"It's personal."

"Personal? Aww, the shitblood's friends are dropping like mayflies, are they? Gotta go to another funeral?" He makes a grab for your phone.

"Look, um, I don't know what I did, but if you could please just-"

"Please what, Nitram? St-st-st-stutter harder?"

"I uh, don't stutter."

"What's that? I uh, c-c-can't hear you."

He's infuriating but relatively harmless, and you have more important things to worry about.

"Look, would you just, fuck off, please?"

Jeering 'oohs' and 'aahs' spread through the room like an aftertaste, and you shake your head and bend to pack your bag.

You are rewarded with a foot in the back.

The greenblood is standing with a sword at the ready, and if you hurt him you will be in trouble, and you can't afford to be injured, so you ignore him, but keep a hand on your weapon.

He is easily bored and does not break the pattern with you, he spits and insult and spills a drop of your worthless blood and drops the sword, stalking off in a childish anger.

You do not have much to carry, just a change of clothes and identification and two weapons. You tell the officer who likes you that something's come up in your black quadrant and he lets you go.

You buy a ticket for you on a ship that takes animal passengers. Your lusus, and your army-issued mount, and your casual mount come with you on the ship.

Tinkerbull is happy to lounge on the army mount's head- a huge, white stag with impressive antlers. You figure they thought it was funny to give the kid with big horns a ride to match.

You lean back on an old friend's lusus- she entrusted it to you when you went away, and you're hoping Nep's at this meeting. You want to show her how much her caregiver has grown.

The ship rumbles and crackles and sets off, and your pillow and mount gives you a fanged double-yawn and settles her head on your lap. It's going to be a long trip.

Your name is **Vriska Serket**, and you don't need Terezi's note to tell you to set sail for Alternia as fast as possible. You have been keeping rack of your friends' activity, and things are going south. Fast.

The engine room of the ship smells like ozone. It's got a bed and a bookshelf and a pure white bird perched in the corner, staring at you warily.

"You in here?"

"No, the ship is driving itself." The voice is creaky with ill-use, and belongs to the troll powering the ship, an impulsive goldblood with small horns hidden in her mass of staticy hair.

She glares at you from the corner, drumming her fingers impatiently.

"Set course for Alternia."

She raises an eyebrow, but the ship rumbles and responds beneath you, turning towards the planet.

"Thanks."

Another eyebrow raise. "You're thanking me for doing what I'm told?"

"I could kill you right now. I could make you kill yourself. It would even be legal. Wise up."

"You won't, though."

"Won't I?"

The psionic gives you an unimpressed smirk. "No. You like me. Plus, I'm assuming you have no desire to be stranded in deep space."

"Fair enough." You turn to leave, and as you grab the door handle, she calls out.

"Vriska. Captain. Whatever."

"Yeah?"

"Don't get yourself killed, okay?"

You let the door swing shit behind you and feel the ship thrum under your feet, surging towards your old home.

Your name is **Aradia Megido**, and you are headed to Kanaya's again, summoned by Terezi's letter, motivated by Karkat's blood. You want to know for sure that he is descended from who he is, that he is trying to rebel against the hemospectrum.

The sands are warm and the path from your hive to hers is well worn. You bring as many weapons as you can carry. You have a feeling you're going to need them.

Your name is **Kanaya Maryam**, and Karkat arrives shortly after his message. He is bigger then you last saw him, and older. He looks like all of reality hit him at once, his endearing, enthusiastic innocence drained out of him like water in the desert.

There are bags under his eyes and a wary, caged animal look in his stance. He is corded with muscle and his clothing clings to him in ways it never did. His eyes are a red that you may never get used to, and he seems resigned, beaten down, ready for a fight. He looks you in the eye, then slips sunglasses on, a sigh in every line of him. You greet him with a smile and he looks at you like an oasis.

Terezi follows closely behind, all bones and angles and teeth. She's got a hand on her sword, the other is draped over Karkat's shoulders. She's limping, bruised, scabbed, eyes unmasked by glasses, hair long, lips ragged with bite marks. She smiles at you, polite as always, and you are very aware of her skill with a blade and affinity for the law as she sits on your couch.

Aradia arrives next, veiled to protect her from the sun. She shakes off sand in the doorway and collapses onto your couch, all ragged gowns and exhaustion. Her eyes dart around the room, trying not to stare at Karkat.

He looks at her, resigned. He must be used to the staring.

Your name is **Karkat Vantas**, and there is a slow headache starting in the back of your skull, the chemical burn of caffeine buzzing behind your eyes. Aradia is sitting across from you, glancing just left of you, trying too hard to act normal.

She looks older then any of you, already big as a proper adult. Her eyes are a deep red, so close to your own, and you are almost jealous. She is curvy and grinning and her horns are massive and heavy and spiral from her head in proud arches. She has an easy smile and an easy laugh and sweeps Kanaya into a graceful hug that makes you smile at the joy of it.

Vriska slams open the door without knocking. Piracy looks good on her. She is battle-scarred and smirking, eye covered in a hexagonal patch, ears, nose, eyebrows and lips pierced and threaded with more gold then you could ever afford.

Her horns are carved with spider webs and inlaid with gold. There is a sword at her side and a dagger in her boot and she gives you a flat, uninterested glance before turning her eyes to Terezi and smiling slightly.

Vriska drapes herself over the couch next to you, an arm looped around Terezi's shoulders, an eye (her only one) watching you warily.

There is a moment of uneasy silence as Vriska and Terezi eye each other, then Vriska goes

"You look like shit."

And Terezi gives her this shark-toothed look somewhere between a grin and a grimace, and Vriska goes to comb the mats and blood out of her hair.

Aradia nods to Vriska, a polite, distant little head jerk, and Vriska smiles the ghost of a smile and goes back to Terezi's hair, tugging harder then is necessary.

The next to the door is Tavros, and the sweeps may have changed him most of all. He stands at the doorway in huge-horned discomfort, nodding polite thanks to Kanaya as he steps inside.

Tavros Nitram is tall and triangular, huge shoulders and a flagpole for a spine. His eyes are ringed in bruisy chocolate shadows. He looks tired and proud and nervous. He is well-muscled and very nearly handsome, not the awkward, sweaty-palmed FLARPer he once was.

The electricity in the air is tangible, a flicker as he and Vriska stare each other down, and Tavros doesn't even blink, just looks her straight in the eye.

The blue blooded pirate stands and stalks over with real confidence, not her grub-hood bluster, she crosses the room with all the swagger a successful, high-blooded pirate should have, and she nods a little, and says something you never thought she'd say.

"You look good, pupa. Didn't need me after all."

It is almost an apology, and it is all Vriska, even this new, harder, crueler, kinder Vriska, will offer, and Tavros bows his enormous horns in a nod and brushes her knuckles with his lips in the distant manner of unpleasant social niceties.

Feferi and Eridan arrive together, and they are well-dressed and rich and old with the weight of years to come.

Feferi is stunning. She is elegant and smiling, fins flushed deep pink. She is lightly freckled and well-dressed in a gown that looks like the sunset, although you suspect she could run and fight in it as easy as she could discuss social niceties. Perhaps easier, if you remember Feferi right.

She carries her trident like jewelry, although she is not short on that. Even Vriska has less gold on her then the empress-to-be. Although, you suspect, not for lack of trying.

She sweeps Kanaya into a dip and kisses her on both cheeks, grinning as she does so. She hugs Aradia, and ignores Vriska, and smiles at you like you are 12th perigee's come early.

Eridan, for his part, is taller and stronger then you remember him. He is dressed in deep purple military uniform, well-groomed as ever. He gives a polite nod to Aradia and Kanaya, ignores you, and stands by the door, hand on his sword and eye only for the heiress. He has a single golden ring looped trough his delicate fins. There is a diamond etched into the metal, and a tyrian patch on the shoulder of his coat.

He's lost the glasses he wore when he was younger, and either he's wearing contacts or he never needed them. His eyes sweep the room warily, then he settles, back to the wall, watching the door with the corned of his eye.

You make small talk with Kanaya and Aradia, Terezi makes very _loud _small talk with Vriska, and Feferi just grins like life is the _best fucking thing._

There is a soft knock on the door.

Sollux captor is all boney knees and height. He's grown but he hasn't really grown up. He reeks like stale coffee and disdain, he's six feet easy, even with the slouch.

He's wearing a yellow and black bodysuit and the mark of a helmsman. He's scowling and bitter and the smell of ozone coming of him is almost overpowering.

"Alright" He says. "Letth get thith party thtarted."

He collapses next to you, all bones and angles, and there is too much of him to sit comfortably anywhere. His knees are around his ears, his glasses folded between anxious fingers.

You stand and sigh and stare around the room, at Kanaya with her nods and smiles, at Vriska with her arms draped around Terezi, and they shoot you identical smirks. Tavros and Aradia, looking nervous and curious, Feferi, looking beautiful and just so fucking _happy, _Eridan looking serious and wary, Sollux looking resigned, if mildly interested.

Deep breath. Terezi turns her attention from Vriska long enough to give you an encouraging nudge.

"Okay." You say. "So I have this secret…"

Your name is **Terezi Pyrope**, and you watch Tavros as he glances around the room, eyes chocolate-sweet, huge head dipped in fuzzy confusion.

"Wait." He says, faltering and quiet. "Aren't we going to wait?"

Karkat looks at him and he gets it right away, sharp as a fucking tack, and you feel his sigh.

"No one else is coming. Just us."

Tavros scans the room, as if the three missing trolls would appear if he looked again. The absences are more of a presence then some of the trolls here, Equius and Nepeta and Gamzee burning their life out of the room.

"But-"

Karkat squares his shoulders like he never could have, smiles a blunt little smile, cracks nervous knuckles.

"I'm sorry." He says. "I tried."

Karkat is carrying the world's weight like a noose carries gravity. He sighs and fiddles and starts and starts again.

"There's a place in the desert where I've been holed up for a couple of sweeps." A lip-bite, ever-so-careful not to break skin.

"And this place, it's like a refuge. A sanctuary. Against the caste system."

Sollux cackles like dry static. "Karkat, you joined up with a rebel group? What do you do all day, jerk each other off and talk about fucking the system?" His disbelieving amusement is drawn through him like wires, raised eyebrows snapping through his veins in a rush of static and light.

Karkat doesn't even scowl. "There are thousands of trolls there, and they can, and will, attack Feferi and her lusus."

"What?" Eridan is on his feet, his rich blood colouring every inch of skin velvet purple. "What do they have against Fef? They know the vast glub'll kill us all, don't they?" His fins are fluttering, inflated in a peacock's display, and Feferi pats his hand.

"I won't let 'em." He says, he glares at the room like a century of oppression, like the trolls in the room are directly responsible. "They'll kill us all." He says again, hand on his gun, like he can't quite fathom the threat.

"Not…" Karkat smiles. "Not all of us, Eridan."

Feferi nods gently, a graceful bow. "Not me. And not the empress."

Karkat's hands dance nervously at the arms of his glasses, then he sighs, a nervous spark running through him like loose wires, a frantic electricity.

"Not-" He pulls at the glasses, fumbles, and drops them. "fuck."

He smiles, shy, almost, blushing crimson, and you wonder how he ever hid his blood colour from anyone.

"Not me." He says, and meets every eye in the room.

Aradia and Kanaya know, of course. Eridan _hisses, _he's on his feet again, hand on his gun, standing over Feferi like a shield. The air buzzes, Sollux is wide-eyed and staring, sparks pouring from his fingers, he is stunned, he is shaking.

Vriska is less surprised then you'd like her to be, faking a startle, faking a jump.

Tavros has tears welling up in his eyes, shivering a little, eyebrows arched like a treason, he opens his mouth and very nearly says something.

Feferi is on her feet in a rustle of skirts, and her power, the muscle in every line of her, makes every one sit back a little, Eridan heeling like a docile barkbeast, Sollux quieting, Tavros staring, and the empress is in her bones, and Karkat is starting her down.

He is small and broad-shouldered and messy haired, red-red eyes staring straight forwards, he does not bow or look up at her, he makes her look down. Feferi is tall and strong, my god she is strong, she could break him, she could shatter him like a wineglass.

Your name is **Feferi Peixes**, and he is waking something in your blood, an instinct, a fear. He does not meet your eyes, and the tension in the room is thick as oppression.

You take his hand, cold and nervous, there is mutiny in every line of him, his arm limp as a surrender. You brush your lips against his knuckles- he is warm as the desert, warm as he sun itself- and the horrible caution in him drains away, he meets your eyes with a stunned neon stare.

He's stronger then you will ever be, scarred ad calloused, eyes shining fire-red and shimmering with tears, and you do the only thing that feels natural.

Your name is **Karkat Vantas**, and the Heiress is bent double in front of you, hand folded over her heart, head bowed, your own grubby, calloused claws held to her lips.

Your name is **Karkat Vantas**, and you are a mutant, and she is tyrian, and the most powerful troll in the universe is fucking _bowing_ to you.

**END OF ACT ONE**


	11. Intermission 1

Your name is **Mituna Captor, **although you haven't heard that name in a very long time.

People call you the **Ψ****iioniic** or the **Helmsman** if they call you anything.

Well, hardly anyone calls you your real name anymore. She still insists on saying it. It's outdated, though. It's hardly you anymore. You're not that same little yellow blood kid anymore- not even a yellow blood anymore, not really, because every resource you can find says yellow bloods live twenty to thirty sweeps and you have been living for…

You do not know how long, anymore. You used to keep track, but that faded away, like so much else.

The screens in your block flickers to life, bypassing your optic nerves, forcing you to look. Orange-red shapes, nine of them, modeling a room in heat from a thermal-capture device galaxies away.

You wonder if the carrier has suspected the virus she carries. You decide it does not matter. Wondering will not bring you closer to knowing what she feels. The blood of your captain's blood, who is bowing in a series of sea-cool ripples billions of miles away.

You have not felt ocean in…

You still do not remember, vaguely think to check if you stored the memory in some far-off bank.

You have not felt the ocean in a very long time, but you recognize it in her as she traces a hand across your cheek, sea-cool hand rubbing your jaw line.

"What are they up to, my sweet?" she muses, and you twist, tendrils of ship, of you, coiling to form a seat for her. She sits like a queen, tracing century-slow circles across your flesh, fever-cool.

The empress drags a nail across the columns that hold you into the ship, draws distracted circles in not-really-yellow blood, stares at the thermal feed from oh-so-far away.

"Have you ever seen blood that hot, my sweet?" She asks, and you turn your attention to the screen where a stocky coal of a silhouette pulses with youth and fiery heat.

You consider lying. Seems pointless. She knows the answer anyway. "Yes."

She sighs, watching the figures still and stare and sit and fidget, but not really watching them. Just images of their heat signatures.

"Have you ever seen psionics that give of that signature?" She asks, watching the cool-hot pulse and crackle on screen, and again you consider lying. You crackle instead, cool-hot.

"Your descendant." She muses, and hers sweeps yours into an exited hug, new and innocent with the ages.

"His descendant." She says, and you look at the coal-hot pulse on the screen, flickering heart-bright.

"And his." She's pointing to another silhouette, two breath-cool membranes folded against his back, shoulders broad, heart lowblood-hot.

"And have you heard the news?" the heat-footage flickers away, replaced by news reports- robberies, ships sacked, low blooded crew taken, the rest of the boats lest to drift. Stories of a one-armed pirate with a white monster and powers unbefitting of a blue blood.

"Mindfang's spawn." She sighs, reaching to you, and you would hold her hand but you haven't had hands for…

You should check those old records. The curiosity is beginning to bother you. But you do not miss the hands. Have not for a long time. You coil a cable around her slender wrist.

"Did you know that we're paying a jade blood to stay on-planet? To take down the grub-mortality rates that have gone up in the past sweeps?" She tilts her head to the side.

"You're smart, sweet. You can guess which it is."

You sketch a picture of the mother in the air, psionics rendering her blue-red. You remember her. You shorten horns, round cheeks, dull fangs.

"Spitting image of the little dolorosa." The empress sighs, hangs her horn-heavy head, weary and old, so old. Older then even you.

"The little Ampora is on-planet with my descendant, too." She says, and you warp the image to sketch _his_ love, his love in everything, and her executioner, in red-blue. Make them younger, like they might be. Could be. A question mark.

"We don't know about them, love. I haven't heard reports. But the teal blood, the legislacerator- she's back."

Redglare. You hum, let the ship vibrate under you. She smiles, twists, rubs a twined ear between her long fingers.

"They're all back, sweet." She smiles, sweet and slow-sad.

"Meenah." You say, voice creaky and dry. "Is he back too?" you let your light draw a picture of the grand highblood. You cannot make him young, only ape-large and sloped and feral, fanged and clawed and huge-horned and knuckle-dragging.

"Yes." She says, reaching out to drag her fingers through empty sparks. "He's back too."

"Should we send him?" You ask, and you picture _him_ bloody and hanging and the last Capricorn watching and laughing. You do not have to explain. The ages passed make her understand how you think.

"Finish what he started." She laughs, dry as dust and musical as ocean wind.

"I suppose we should."

She stands up, dispersing your psionic sculpture into a cloud of purple ozone. She hugs you, shuddering and cool against you, and you wrap the cables around her, humming and tucking a heavy head against her shoulder.

"We're going to die soon, aren't we, Mituna?"

You just hum and shiver against her and whisper her name into her hair.

"I thought we were immortal." She says, and you just comfort her as you can. The way you must.

"I though we would live forever." and you cry, not-yellow and tyrian and dust and age.

And you will die, soon, someday.

AN: I want to say thanks again for all the support- I've been getting a lot of really positive feedback lately, and I'm really glad you're all liking it!

You're going to have to deal with a little bit of intermission before we get back to the main story, but I just wanted to check in and say thanks for tagging along.

-A


	12. Intermission 2

You name is **Gamzee Makara**, and the Empress has given you a motherfucking _job_ to be done.

She told you the most secret of secrets, she told you your nubbiest buddy was the spawn of the sufferer, told you he was set to up and destroy the world.

Told you all the movers-and-shakers of the last thousand sweeps were back, the ones who'd shaken the world like a pop can 'till the carbonation had to place to go but out. Told you you were one.

Aint that the sweetest.

Told you you'd be grand highblood one day, and don't that feel _right._ Doesn't that sing in your motherfucking _blood_ like the messiah's finest hymns. Told you to finish what the blood in your veins had started.

Told you to off your oldest fucking friends, and ain't that the _motherfucking_ _sweetest._

The whole world's gone muzzy with it's carbonation, fit to pop, and don't it feel right that you'd be the one to let the pressure loose, take that can in one hand and pop the tab, let chaos go where it may.

Hunt your nubbiest brother down until the soil ran faygo-red and his little horns were worn to tingling stubs. Hunt your sweet brown-eyed brother down and rip the blasphemy from his back, hang them like fucking _tapestries,_ saw his horns off and leave him to rot, earthbound.

Gave you a ship, all your own, dripping purple-black and full of your subjects. The ship is dark as the blood of your blood, painted every corridor spectrum-bright, painted every shipmate white-grey with the god's paint, purple-black with your rule. You are headed for Alternia in your own goddamn time, full of the ones who will wreak the messiah's will upon the land and wipe your brother's revolution from the world, scrub the earth clean with elixir and blood.

And won't that mixture water the ground so _nice._ Won't the finest things grow from your brother's veins.

Won't the old man be _proud, _watching from the dark carnival, laughing from his throne of skulls and horns. Won't that be so fucking _sweet._

When you get there the sky will rain with your kin, the world will _bleed. motherfucking. Indigo._ And you will take your throne with fire and blood and the most secret of secrets will be held no more.

It'll _rain _secrets. It'll motherfucking _bleed_ secrets. Secrets'll water the throats of the Blasphemers until they _sing_ the motherfucking _spectrum._

The Empress and her oldest of blasphemers have given you a _job to be done._

And you will do it. You will do it with _fire._ You will do it with blood and sacrifice and the strength in your two motherfucking hands will do the job with claws and fists and terror.

You will _do_ the motherfucking _job, _or the world will do it the fuck for you.

You are Gamzee Makara, and you are going to slaughter a rebel and put the world back where it ought to belong.

That's it for the intermissions, next time we return with the plot, and hopefully something a little longer for you guys. Again, thanks for all the support.

-A


	13. Wanderers and Warnings

Your name is **Tavros Nitram** and Karkat is braver then you'll ever be. He bared his weakness to this room, like you never could.

You almost told them. Almost told them the one thing you could never tell anyone, ever, but you didn't. Instead, you say,

"What now?"

And Vriska gives you a look that is very nearly impressed and Feferi straightens, the moment shattered, once again every bit the empress she is. Karkat isn't a king anymore, isn't a soldier, he's a short, serious troll in an ill-fitting sweater.

And he says, "I don't know."

Vriska snorts.

"Words of wisdom from our prodigious leader, everyone." The blueblood gives an ugly smile when Terezi jams her elbow back into her ribs.

Eridan stands up to speak. "I think we should gather a militant force and charge the building at once. We can put a stop to the problem before it has the chance to be a problem."

Karkat looks uncomfortable, eyes rooted to the floor.

"Sit down, asshole." Sollux lisps, stretching an arm fragile as bird bones. "KK said there were thousands of them. No military on this whole planet would be enough to deal with that." He glances at Vriska.

"What we need is information."

Vriska nods. "Karkat and Terezi can handle getting information from inside their little school. Sollux can… do what Sollux does." She waves vaguely towards Kanaya's husktop.

Karkat starts to nod, then scowls. "How do _you_ know Terezi's holed up with me? How do you even know it's a school?"

Vriska shrugs. "Okay, maybe I could help find out about this school of yours too."

Aradia is quiet, looking at you, measuring you. Kanaya looks uncomfortable.

"I could provide housing for anyone that doesn't have it. I'm afraid my current skillet is less then adequate for the situation."

Aradia raised an eyebrow, eyes a tube of makeup Kanaya's got in her hand.

Karkat sits down, wedging himself in next to Terezi.

"Well. Thanks everyone for coming, but Terezi and I should probably get back. There aren't really rules about leaving the building but they already don't like me and-" He stops, glances at his hands and you notice how battered he is.

There's a scratch on his cheek, the scab hidden with concealer. There's blood under his nails and bags under his eyes. He looks like he hasn't slept in years.

"I'll message you if we think of anything else. Is there something you need before you go?" Kanaya half-rises from the couch but Karkat waves her off.

"No, We'll be okay. Come on, Terezi."

Terezi swats one of Vriska's hands away, smirks, stands, and steps right on the toe of Vriska's boot.

Vriska says nothing, just shoves Terezi away and looks Karkat in the eye. "See you around, o fearless leader."

Karkat sighs and grabs Terezi's hand and pulls her away. They trek into the desert, blowing sand quickly hiding them from view.

Your name is **Karkat Vantas** and it looks like someone's put together a welcome party for you.

"Vantas." There is a troll standing in the shade cast by the academy, scowling next to his lusus. Behind him are five or six others, and you recognize the four founders of the institute among them.

"Yes, sir?"

"Where were you and Pyrope? And where are you coming back from?"

Terezi cut in, grinning too wide and saying, sickly-sweet, "Just getting some air, _sir._"

One of the founders steps up, thin and caffeinated. She looks a lot like Sollux.

"How dumb do you think we _are_?"

"Pretty smart, Ma'am." You step back on Terezi's heel and pray she shuts up for just a second. "Terezi was lying."

You feel her tense for a moment, knee digging into your legs.

"We went up to the city to see if there were any mutants hiding out there. Sometimes they have a hard time finding the institute, as you know, and we just wanted to help out. If we're going to do what you say we are, we're going to need allies."

The thin troll looks like she's fighting for words for a moment, then says "Good idea, Vantas. But next time, if you'd tell us first, we could send people with you to help."

"Sorry, Ma'am. We weren't thinking."

Terezi stiffens, pride wounded, and you grab her hand, digging your nails into her palm. _Shut up._

"I'll go to my room now, Ma'am. I'd like to wash up a bit, but I can write up a report later."

"Very good, Vantas."

Your name is **Terezi Pyrope**, and the trolls didn't believe a word of what you said. They were exchanging looks and snickering and the troll you were talking to was almost _laughing_ at you.

They might not know what you're doing, but they know you're doing _something._ And they don't like it.

Your palmhusk rattles.

Sender Unknown

Pyrope,

The Vantas kid means well. But he's Naïve. You're smart. You know that we know that there's something else going on here. You leave this building again without our permission and you're not getting back in. I like you. I like Vantas. But you break the rules again, you lie to us again, and you're not coming within sight of this institute every again.

You smirk. Send a message back.

**[CG]** I'm blind :/

Sender Unknown

You know what I mean, Pyrope. You are not to leave this building until we order you to do so or you are never going anywhere again. We've worked hard for this place and we will now have it ruined by two kids playing hooky. Leave again and you die.

**[GC]** Point made. There's not much out there anyway.

You name is **Terezi Pyrope,** and someone out there has it in for you. The air smells like pepper spray and smoke and you suspect that whatever order there is in your life is about to go down the tubes.

Bring it on.


	14. Threats and Theories

AN: New goal- finish TDAK before the hiatus ends. Bring it on.

-F

Your name is **Equius Zahhak, **and Karkat and Terezi were stopped outside the gates. You saw them trying to sneak in before the sun rose, saw them argue and fight and watch the pink-feathered horizon with anxious eyes.

Nepeta was behind you, warm and small and soft and she says she likes watching the sun come up. You stay up and watch it with her until your eyes water and she brushes blue out of your eyes with gentle, down-soft fingers, slender and steady and warm.

She smiles and the room glows and you do not think it is all the sunlight, and she massages the ache out of your shoulders until you fall asleep.

You are Equius Zahhak, and when that green blood died a part of you died and when Nepeta was here, when it wasn't her, you were more alive then you have ever been.

Your name is Equius Zahhak and you will die yourself before anyone touches your moirail.

Your name is **Karkat Vantas** and Terezi is tense. She's stiff and holding herself too tall, shoulders back, teeth bared in a too-wide smile. The last time you saw her this arrogant is when she was newly blind and needed your help to keep the nightmares away.

One corner of her mouth is curved into an ugly smirk and she's got an elbow resting between your horns. She walks you through the halls like she owns you and that's fine because you have no idea what's wrong but she needs this right now.

Equius stops you on the way to breakfast. Terezi shoves herself off your head and walks forwards, peers up into his face and fixes him with red eyes and bared teeth and messy hair and he _flinches._

"Terezi." He nods. "Mr. Vantas."

"Yeah." Her voice is loud and grating, nasal and scratchy and sneering.

"Ms. Pyrope. I heard you and Mr. Vantas were help up last morning."

The last time you saw Equius he was crying and wailing along to the whispers of the horrerterrors. This Equius is a marble statue, he is huge and cold and watching you like you are not worth his gaze.

"That's right. We were returning from a special mission for the academy and they wanted a quick word before we went back inside."

Equius crouched, squatting until his eyes were level with Terezi's and grabbed her by the shoulders, massive fingers denting her skin. Terezi's smile grew and Equius _rumbled_, he growled like an earthquake and dug his fingers in and said,

"If either of you do anything to hurt Nepeta I will hunt you down and kill you where you stand."

Terezi raised an eyebrow, narrow shoulders covered in rough, massive hands.

"I'd like to see you try."

Equius's fingers jump, tense, and his hands fall limp to his sides.

He sneers then, and the ugly slash of broken teeth and lip look so alien on his face that Terezi very nearly falters.

"You have no idea what I am capable of, Pyrope."

Terezi pauses, watches his hands, rakes her eyes over his face and then leans back into a slouch.

"Equius. Look. We all know you want to look the big hero and save your illegal moirail, but she'd be in less danger if you let her go."

His shoulders tense, and he rolls his fingers against each other.

"Someone will find out. And whether or not it has anything to do with Karkat or me is irrelevant. She. Will. Die." Terezi shrugged. "There's not much you can do about it.

Equius look at his feet, hair curtaining around his face.

"No."

"Sorry?"

"I. Said. NO, Pyrope." He slams a fist into the wall, ripping a ragged whole in the plaster, and yanks his arm away- cut and bleeding and trailing drywall comet tails. He jabs the other finger at her chest.

"You just stay away from her. And stop whatever it you're doing. I will kill you first." He turns and storms off and you are stunned silent and Terezi leans back against the wall, brushing away drywall dust.

"Well." She said. "That was eventful."

You nod and turn and see a flash of frightened orange eyes and a curve of horns and a troll dashes past you through the halls, a closet door banging shut behind you.

Your name is **Sollux Captor** and you still can't really believe any of the shit that's happening to you.

Vriska is draped next to you with the worst computer you have ever seen. It's leaking wires and painted the ugliest blue you have ever seen a computer painted. The battery is visible through the casing and flickers with strange white psionics.

She's watching videos with one earbud in and a hand in a bowl of chips and her leg draped over your keyboard.

"Sollux."

"Yeah." You shove her leg away and brush off your laptop and pull your headphones around your neck.

"Look at this." She offers you a grubby earbud and you wave it off and yank the headphones from the jack, pulling the computer into your lap.

There is grainy footage of a ship painted black and purple in wide, dripping stripes playing itself in static across Vriska's screen.

"Where did you get this?"

"Imperial messaging site. Shh."

As the ship drifted closer, you notice railing made from bones and banners stitched from tattered circus tent and a name splashed on the side in face-paint white.

"Capricorn's Elixir"

There are enormous trolls crowding the deck, slouched and face-painted and tall-horned, and as the ship nears wherever the cameraman is standing it erupts in honking and screaming and the thudding of heavy, indigo feet on a metal deck.

The ship flickers with a static coat of many-coloured psionics and picks up speed, blurring away through space on course for a planet you know very well.

"Vriska."

"Yeah."

"You don't think they're coming here."

"Nope."

She reaches over and scrolls down and reveals the description of the video.

"Subjugglator ship "Capricorn's Elixir" Set course for Alternia yesterday in response to on-planet unrest. Classified information. Leak penalty- execution."

"I _know_ they're coming here."

You look out the window nervously, as if expecting to see the great purple ship hanging over the desert.

Vriska doesn't miss the gesture and snorts.

Then- "This is part of Karkat's mess isn't it?"

"I think there's almost no chance it _isn't_ related to Karkat."

She sighs and takes her computer back and cracks her bony knuckles, stretching shiny-blue scars.

"We are _so_ fucked."

Your name is Sollux Captor and yeah, the lady said it.


End file.
